Going into Space

The history of man going into space started in the 1950’s with the first successful space flights of artifical satellites, and then living beings. It was the Soviet Union that launched the first satellite, Sputnik 1, on 4 October 1957. This orbited the earth sending out a signal until its battery ran out on 26 October and, going into orbital decay, it burned up in the atmosphere of the earth on 4 January 1958. Once again it was the Soviet Union that took the next step by launching a living creature into space. Controversially, a 3 year old stray dog named Laika (meaning ‘barker’ or ‘howler’ in Russian) was put into Sputnik 2 and launched on 3 November 1957. Laika and two other dogs had been trained and prepared for some time prior to launch and Laika was the one selected. One of the scientists later revealed that he took Laika home to play with his children knowing that she had little time left. Laika’s flight into space proved that living beings could survive a launch and weightlessness, but it was a one-way trip and people were told that Laika died after several days. In 2002, however, it was revealed that Laika had actually died a few hours after launch, presumably from stress and heat. Sputnik 2 orbited the earth until it, and Laika, burned up on 4 April 1958. In 2008 a monument to Laika was unveiled near Moscow.

The first human being in space was Soviet astronaut Juri A Gagarin (1934-68) who went around the earth in Wostok 1 launched 12 April 1961. He was followed on 5 May 1961 by the first American, Alan B Shepherd, on board Freedom 7. It also the Americans who were the first to land on the moon, on 21 July 1969. Although there were some other trips, the pace of space exploration slowed down until recent times. But there have been innovations over the years. The Columbia was the first shuttle to make a successful flight, 12 July 1981, while later on the Russians constructed the Mir space station. There is now an international space station orbiting 200 miles above the earth which provides an environment for scientific experiments. Helen P Sharman (b. 1963), an English chemist, was the first UK citizen to go into space when she visited the Mir space station in 1991. In 2003 Yang Liwei was the first Chinese, and third country in the world, to send a manned craft into space.