The History of Technology: The Space Age

Space Age

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

This article is about the era. For the fire protection company, see Space Age Electronics.

The launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite marked the start of the Space Age.^[1]

Menu

0:00

The signals of Sputnik 1 continued for 22 days.

The Space Shuttle lifts off on a manned mission to space.

The Space Age is a time period encompassing the activities related to the Space Race, space exploration, space technology, and the cultural developments influenced by these events. The Space Age is generally considered to have begun with Sputnik (1957). Furthermore it is argued that this age brought a new dimension to the Cold War.

Contents

• 1 Beginning
• 2 Current period
• 3 Chronology
• 4 Earlier spaceflights
• 5 See also
• 6 References
• 7 External links
  • 7.1 Interactive media

Beginning

The Space Age began with the development of several technologies that culminated on October 4, 1957, with the launch of Sputnik 1 by the Soviet Union. This was the world's first artificial satellite, orbiting the Earth in 98.1 minutes and weighing in at 83 kg. The launch of Sputnik 1 ushered a new era of political, scientific and technological achievements that became known as the Space Age.^[2]
The Space Age was characterized by rapid development of new technology in a close race mostly between the US and the Soviet Union. Rapid advances were made in rocketry, materials science, computers and other areas. Much of the technology originally developed for space applications has been spun off and found other uses.
The Space Age reached its peak with the Apollo program, that captured the imagination of much of the world's population. The landing of Apollo 11 was watched by over 500 million people around the world and is widely recognized as one of the defining moments of the 20th century. Since then, public attention has largely moved to other areas. Public perception of the dangers and cost of space exploration in the US was greatly affected by the Challenger disaster in 1986. Public interest in space exploration further faded when the space race came to an end due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
During the 1990s funding for space related programs fell sharply as the remaining structures of the Soviet Union disintegrated and NASA no longer had any direct competition.
Since then participation in space launches has increasingly widened to more governments and commercial interests. Since the 1990s, the current period has more often been referred to as the Information Age rather than the Space Age, since space exploration and space-related technologies gained a perception by many people of being commonplace.

Current period

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009)

In the early 21st century, the Ansari X Prize competition was set up to help jump start private spaceflight, which was won by Space Ship One in 2004, becoming the first spaceship not funded by a government agency.
Several countries now have space programs; from related technology ventures to full fledged space programs with launch facilities. There are many scientific and commercial satellites in use today, with a total of thousands of satellites in orbit, and several countries have plans to send humans into space.

Chronology

See also: Timeline of space exploration

Date	First ...	Mission	Person(s)	Country
October 4, 1957	artificial satellite	Sputnik 1	–	Soviet Union
January 2, 1959	Lunar flyby, and first spacecraft to achieve a heliocentric orbit	Luna 1	–	Soviet Union
September 12, 1959	Impacted on the Lunar surface; thereby becoming the first human object to reach another world	Luna 2	–	Soviet Union
October 7, 1959	Pictures of the far side of the Moon	Luna 3	–	Soviet Union
April 12, 1961	Human in space	Vostok 1	Yuri Gagarin	Soviet Union
March 18, 1965	Spacewalk	Voskhod 2	Alexey Leonov	Soviet Union
December 15, 1965	Space rendezvous	Gemini 6A & Gemini 7	Schirra, Stafford, Borman, Lovell	United States
April 3, 1966	Artificial satellite of another celestial body	Luna 10	–	Soviet Union
December 21–27, 1968	Humans to leave the Earth's influence, orbiting the Moon	Apollo 8	Borman, Lovell, Anders	United States
July 20, 1969	Humans to walk on the Moon	Apollo 11	Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin	United States
April 19, 1971	Space station	Salyut 1	–	Soviet Union
July 20, 1976	Pictures from the surface of Mars	Viking 1	–	United States
April 12, 1981	Reusable orbital spaceship	Space Shuttle	Young, Crippen	United States
February 19, 1986	Long-duration space station	Mir	–	Soviet Union
November 2, 2000	Resident crew	Expedition 1 (International Space Station)	–	International

Earlier spaceflights

The Space Age might also be considered to have begun much earlier than October 4, 1957, because on October 3, 1942, a German A4 rocket, a prototype version of the V-2 rocket program, reached space. It thus became the first man-made object to enter space, albeit only briefly. Since this flight was undertaken in secrecy, it was not public knowledge for many years afterwards. Further, the German launch, as well as the subsequent sounding rocket tests performed in both the United States and the Soviet Union during the late 1940s and early 1950s, were not considered significant enough to start a new age because they did not reach orbit. Having a rocket powerful enough to reach orbit meant that a nation had the ability to place a payload anywhere on the planet, or to use another term, possessed an inter-continental ballistic missile. The fact that after such a development nowhere on the planet was safe from a nuclear warhead is why the orbit standard is used to define when the space age started.^[3]

See also

	Spaceflight portal
	Space portal
	Solar system portal

• Space exploration
• Space Race
• Spacecraft
• Human spaceflight
• Space probe
• Information Age
• Atomic Age
• Googie architecture (space age design movement)
• Space tourism

References

1. Jump up ^ McDougall, Walter A (Winter 2010), "Shooting the Moon", American Heritage.
2. Jump up ^ Garber, Steve. "Sputnik and The Dawn of the Space Age". History. NASA. Retrieved 6 May 2013.
3. Jump up ^ Schefter, James (1999), The Race: The Uncensored Story of How America Beat Russia to the Moon, New York, New York: Doubleday, pp. 3–49, ISBN 0-385-49253-7

External links

Look up space age in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Space Chronology

Interactive media

• 50th Anniversary of the Space Age & Sputnik, NASA.

[hide] v t e Spaceflight General Astrodynamics History Accidents and incidents Records Space Age Space Race Animals in space Space policy European Union United States Applications Earth observation satellites Spy satellites Weather satellites Private spaceflight Satellite navigation Space archaeology Space architecture Space colonization Space exploration Space medicine Space nursing Space research Space technology Space tourism Human spaceflight General Astronaut Life support system Extra-vehicular activity Space suit Hazards Effect of spaceflight on the human body Space adaptation syndrome Health threat from cosmic rays Space and survival Space weather Weightlessness Major projects Apollo Gemini International Space Station Mercury Mir Shenzhou Soyuz Space Shuttle Voskhod Vostok Spacecraft Launch vehicle Robotic spacecraft Rocket Spacecraft propulsion Spaceplane Destinations Sub-orbital Orbital Geocentric Geosynchronous Interplanetary Interstellar Intergalactic Space launch Direct ascent Escape velocity Expendable and reusable launch systems Launch pad Non-rocket spacelaunch Spaceport Space agencies CNES CNSA ESA ISRO JAXA NASA RKA

Categories:

• Spaceflight
• Historical eras
• 20th century
• 1957 introductions

end quote from:
Space Age