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What was the Space Race
As we know, during the second half of the XX century, USA and the USSR weren't specially friends, and the Cold War helped this race because both used space technology in satellites to spy on the orher. This led to the start of the race, consisted of seeing who advanced the most in space (first human on the moon, first robot on the moon, first space station with permanent crew...etc). Although it is thought that it ended in the 75, the competitions remained almost until the 90's. -
First intercontinental ballistic missile
The R-7 Semiorka was the first intercontinental ballistic missil, launched in 1957. -
The first artificial satellite
The Sputnik 1 was the first artificiall satellite in history. Launched by the USSR, was the first of various USSR satellites with the name Sputnik. -
First animal in orbit
The dog Laika, Kudryavka in Russian, was the first animal that went to the space orbit in history. The spacecraft was the Sputnik 2, which was a cone of 4 mteres tall and a diameter of 2. Laika only was alive for a few hours, it died beause of overheating and stress. -
Detection of Van Allen belt
The Explorer 1 was the first satellite launched by USA, thanks to this satellite, the Van Allen belt, which is a zone in space where there are lots of particles with lot of energy. Its origin was the solar wind caught by the terrestrial magnetic field. -
First communications satellite
In 1958, USA launched the first communications satellite, the SCORE. It returned The Earth the 21 of January of 1959. USA aim was to prove that a system of communication based on satellites was possible. -
First solar artificial satellite
The Mechta 1, was the first spacecraft that reached the vicinities of the moon. In 1963, it was renamed Luna 1, althought it was knowed in Europe as Lunik 1 -
First spacecraft that crashed The Moon
In September of 1959, the USSR achieved to be the first country that crashed The Moon with an spacecraft, and that was the objective althought it sounds crazy. The spacecraft was called Luna 2 -
First meteoroligal satellite
The Vanguard 2 was the first satellite which helped humans to know about future climate, it was developed by USA in the first half of 1959. -
Spy satellite
USA created tthe first satelllite that was used to observe other parts of the eratht that wa mostly used for military aims and intelligence advancing. It was called the Discoverer 4. -
First piucture of The Earth from the space
In August of 1959, the Explorer 6, also knowed as S 2, an American satellite, was the first one to take a picture of The Earth from space. -
Picture of the Hidden side of the Moon
In 1959, the USSR took the first picture of the Hidden Side of The Moon, with the Luna 3, the spacecraft used. -
First animal which traveled to The Moon and returned alive
Belka and Strelka were the two dogs which were sent to the space in the Sputnik 5 by the USSR, both of them returned alive. In all dog trips developed by the USSR, the dogs were of female sex because the space suit was designed for its way of peeing. -
First human in the Earth's orbit
Yuri Gagarin was the first human who traveled to the Space in the Vostok 1, he orbited the Earth at a high of 315 km. -
First person to sleep and being in space for more than 24 hours
Guerman Titov went to space in the Vostok 2, he completed a total of 17,5 orbits to The Earth. -
First spacecraft that flew over Venus
The Venera 1 was an USSR spacecraft which achieved the objective of fying over Venus. -
First active communications satellite
The Testlar 1 was the first satellite which transmuted images to TV and stablished phone calls and telegraph messages. Although they are not working nowadays, they are still orbitnh The Earth. -
First trip of two controled spacecrafts
The Vostok 3 and 4 were two Russian spacecrafts that were controled by Andrián Nikoláyev and Pável Popóvich, respectively. Both orbited The Earth at the same time and stablished communication by radio between them. -
First satellite with no USSR or USA intervention
Canad awas the first country, excepting obviously USA and the USSR which launched a sartellite to the space, it was called the Alouette 1. -
First women in orbit
Valentina Vladimírovna Tereshkova was the first woman in history who went to the space, in 1965. This also was the last spacecraft of the Vostok serie, with the Vostok 6. -
Geosynchronous communications satellite
The Syncom 2 was the first satellite that orbited The Earth by the Equeator with the same speed as Earth has, so it can provide reliable communications to almost a half of the Earth ( a 40%). -
First mission with no space suits
The three astronaut who took part in the Vosjod 1, went to space with no space suits. The aim of this serie (Vosjos) was to study the human behaving aout of the spacecraft. The Vosjod 1 was very small, so the astronauts used only working suits. -
Firs space walking
Alekséi Leónov was the first human who went out of his spacecraft, the Vosjod 2, he was out in space for a total of 12 minutes. -
First Rendezvouz in orbit
Gemini 6 and 7 were the first two spacecrafts that "flew" very close to each other, 30 cm exactly. They were next to each other for 20 minutes. -
First succesfully landing on The Moon with pictures
Luna 9 was the spacecraft which landed in The Moon, Once it landed, it was taking pictures and sending them among data to The Earth during three days. -
First spacecraft to reach another planet
The Venera 3 was an USSR spacecraft which went to another planet. The aim of the mission was to land on Venus, but unfortunately it crshed t. -
Rendezvouz in orbit and docking
The Gemini 8 docked Agena, the superior part of a rocket. Also in this mission, Ed White wento out in space for 20 minutes. The main driver of this spacecraft was Neil Amstrong, who would land and walk The Moon some years later. -
First orbit to a Celestian Body different to Earth
Luna 10 was a Russian non-human manned spacecraft which completed a whole orbit to The Moon in April of 1966. It was also the first human-made object which orbited far away from Earth -
First automatic docking
The Cosmos 188 and Cosmo 186 were two non-manned by human which achieved the goal of docking. Lthough they connected, ther was no electrical connection because of an aligning failure. -
First manned orbit to The Moon
In December of 1968, EEUU was able to send a human to the orbit of the Moon and completed an orbit. The Apolo 8 was the name of the Spacecraft and completed a total of 10 orbits. -
First human in The Moon
In July of 1969, USA achieved one of the most important goals in the Space Race, carrying humans to the moon in the Apolo 11 this event supposed one before and one after in the space race, because, although the USSR completed most of goals before, USA achieved first the most important one. -
First crew exchange in orbit
The Soyuz 4 and 5 were the two spacecrafts which were the first to make a crew exchange. Soyuz 4 completed 48 orbits and Soyuz 5 49. -
Firs Moon samples
The Luna 16 was the spacecraft that went to The Moon an returned with 101 grams of Moon samples -
Firs robotic vehicle in The Moon
The Lunojod 1 was a vehicle which went across more than 10km through The Moon during almost 1 year. -
First surface data fom another planet
The Venera 7 was the first spacecraft that reached Venus without crashing and sent data of its sufrace -
First satellite that orbited other planet (Mars)
The Mariner 9 reached the orbit of Mars and it completed two orbits per day for a year. -
First Space Station
The Slayut 1 was the first spacial station, it was in orbit for 175 days until it ran out of fuel and was destroyed by the conrtroled return to the atmosphere. -
First spacecraft to crash Mars
The Mars 2 reached Mars, but although its aim was to land on it, the landing system failed and it crashed -
First succesful landing on Mars and pictures
The Mars 3 finally was able to land Mars and once it landed, it kook photos of the surface and clouds to determine temperature, topography, physics...etc. -
First geostationary communications satellite
The Anik A1 was a Canadian satellite which was mainlybused for emitting in TV -
First orbital laboratory of the EEUU
The Skylab was a space station which was active for 6 years (more or less 2250 days). It was visited by astronauts 3 times. -
First militar space station
The Salyut 3 was an USSR military station although the USSR tried to hide its aim under the name of Salyut. -
First shared mission (USSR & USA)
The Apolo-Soyuz mission consisted of a docking between Russian and American spacecrafts. Thanks to it, both learned about the space programme and advances of each other. -
First space shuttle
EEUU developed Columbia, the space shuttle that achieved missions out of the Earth. It was destroyed when it reentered the Earth's atmosphere in 2003, with 7 astronauts on it. -
First space walking of a woman
The Sliut 7 was the last Russian space station of the Saliut serie. Svetlana Savítskaya reached the stationin other spacecraft and once he was on it, he did the first woman space walking. -
First space station with permanent crew
The Mir was the first one to have crew on it at every moment. Although it was planned to be working for 5 years, it was for 13. It completed 86331 total otbits and it had an orbital speed of 7,7 km/s. -
First humans that were in space for 1 year
Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov were the first humans in history that were in space for more than one year. The used space station was Mir.