The Past and The Future of Explorers PART III

At the beginning of mankind, people may have looked up at the sky, stars and moon and thought nothing of what lay above them. For most of our history, we believed that we were at the centre of the Universe. That belief was based mainly on our religious ideas – people thought themselves to be not just at the centre of everything, but they believed to be the centre of everything themselves. They believed that everything in existence was provided for their benefit. The acquirement of the knowledge that Earth is just a small part of something much, much larger and has allowed us to mature beyond that misunderstanding. People began to wonder about what was there, and soon about how to get there. Looking back, countless hours were spent to get us where we are now.

In the 18^th Century people started coming up with ideas for space travel and for basic aviation. Some of the ideas back in those days consisted of a hot-air balloon, a parachute or movable wings. It is quite obvious to us living in the present that those designs never would have worked. In the early 20^th Century people were still spending a unspeakably huge amounts of time and money to create a simple aircraft, not even knowing its potentials. The Wright brothers achieved that in 1903. In 1926, Robert H. Goddard launched the world's first liquid-propelled rocket. The rocket, which was dubbed "Nell", rose just 41 feet during a 2.5-second flight that ended in a cabbage field, but it was an important demonstration that liquid rockets were possible. That one achievement would eventually lead to the development of space travel.

Direct space exploration began over a quarter of century later in October of 1957. It was then that the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite. It was also the Soviet Union that launched the first man into space. This man was Yuri Gagarin. History was made on April 12, 1961, when he successfully orbited the earth at the speed of about 17,000 mph in the Votsok 1. The mission lasted 108 minutes, and it was considered an enormous breakthrough in space travel. Unfortunately, after this mission, Gagarin was killed in a test airplane crash.

Right after the Soviet Union's spectacular space travel success, the United States decided to join the ''space race'', but they decided to take it a step further. Project Apollo began in October 1968 with the launch of Apollo 11, headed by Neil Armstrong, who became the first human being to set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969. Other astronauts that accompanied Armstrong on this mission were Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., and Michael Collins. In later missions, the Apollo project landed a total of 6 people on the moon.

Other space missions of great significance were for example: the first in history travel into space of a woman, Valentina Vladimora Nikolayeva Tereshkova, in 1963; Sputnik 1, which was the first artificial satellite to orbit the earth (later destroyed by aerodynamic frictional heat upon it's return to Earth's atmosphere); and the launch of Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, which were sent out to Jupiter in August and September 1977.

Future plans of scientists include using antimatter as a form of fuel. The only problem with antimatter is that it doesn't naturally exist, therefor it has to be made in labs. It is also very unstable, only being able to stay intact for several billionths of a second. Antimatter has a large chance of becoming the ultimate super fuel since only 100 milligrams of it could easily power a space shuttle through its whole mission.

In the years to come, people will continue to launch new satellites and explore the great unknown. There is undoubtedly still a lot more to for us to discover in space.