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The British mathematician William Moore publishes Treatise on the Motion of Rockets. This work features the first exposition of rocket mechanics based on Newton's third law of motion.
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U.S. rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard receives two landmark patents for rockets. The first described a multi-stage rocket and the second described a rocket fueled with gasoline and liquid nitrous oxide. These two patents would become major milestones in the history of rocketry.
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U.S. rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard launches the first liquid fueled rocket from his Aunt Effie's farm in Auburn, Massachusetts. The 4-foot high rocket dubbed "Nell" reaches an altitude of 41 feet and a speed of about 60 miles per hour. The flight lasts only 2 1/2 seconds, but paves the way for the U.S. rocket program.
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The U.S. military achieves its first high-altitude space flight using a rebuilt German V-2 rocket. Launched from the White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico, the flight reaches an altitude of 70 miles.
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Fruit flies become the first animals in space as a V-2 rocket is launched from the White Sands Proving Ground. Inside are several vials containing fruit flies, rye seeds, and cotton seeds. The flight reaches an altitude of 60 miles, and the payload is later retrieved intact.
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Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin became the first human to venture into space. The Vostok 1 spacecraft made one complete orbit around Earth in 108 minutes, and reached altitudes of 112 to 203 miles. The flight lasted only one hour and 48 minutes.
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Commander Pavel I. Belyayeu and Pilot Alexei A. Leonov into Earth’s orbit were launched into orbit aboard Voskhod 2. Alexei Leonov performed the first, tethered space walk outside of his spacecraft while in Earth’s orbit. This historic venture into space lasted a mere 12 minutes.
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The Russian spacecraft Luna 9 completed a 250,000-mile trip and successfully became the first spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon. Luna 9 transmitted pictures of the Moon's surface back to Earth. The mission demonstrated that the Moon's surface was strong enough to support the weight of a large spacecraft.
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Soviet Soyuz 1 is launched, carrying Vladimir M. Komarov. On April 24 it crashed during re-entry, killing Komarov, the first spaceflight fatality.
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Apollo 13 is launched, suffering an explosion in its SM oxygen tanks. Its Moon landing is aborted, and the entire world watches as James A. Lovell, Jr., John L. Swigert, Jr. and Fred W. Haise, Jr., struggle for days to survive. They return safely to Earth after several harrowing days in space.
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The first manned mission of the Space Transportation System (STS-1), Columbia, is launched. This mission, as well as the next three, will be a test flight to try out the spacecraft's systems.
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Soviet cosmonauts Anatoli N. Berezovoi and Valentin V. Lebedev are launched in Soyuz T-5 to rendezvous with Salyut 7 and become the first team to inhabit the space station. They return to Earth in Soyuz T-7, setting a new duration record of 211 days.
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Astronaut Sally K. Ride becomes the first American woman to travel into space on Space Shuttle Challenger mission STS-7.
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NASA's Messenger spacecraft becomes the first man made craft to orbit the closest planet to the Sun. The MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft begins its mission to map and photograph the planet's surface in high resolution. It will also study the planet's thin atmosphere and search for signs of water that could lie frozen beneath the surface.
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The space shuttle Atlantis becomes the last American space shuttle to be launched into space. Mission STS-135 and its 4-member crew bring much-needed supplies and equipment to the International Space Station (ISS). This is the 135th flight of the space shuttle and the 33rd flight for Atlantis. On July 21, at 5:57 AM eastern daylight time, Atlantis lands at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and officially ends the 30-year space shuttle program. Atlantis will be cleaned up and placed on display
