History of space exploration

Before 1957, space exploration was a new territory that no country had crossed before, however, the Soviet Union was the first to start the space exploration age with its satellite called Sputnik I. The launch of Sputnik I pushed the creation of NASA and the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. One of NASA’s major contributions was the launch of NASA’s first orbiting laboratory called the Skylab I. The Skylab I helped in understanding how humans are impacted by staying in space and expanding our knowledge on solar astronomy. With Skylab I launched, NASA decided to send spacecraft like the Viking and the Voyager to explore space. The Viking gathered information about Earth’s sister planet Mars. After the Viking’s success, NASA began working on the Voyager. The Voyager mission was very special because it can only be conducted during an alignment that happens every 176 years. Every 176 years the planets in our solar system align in a position that can be used to send probes through space. In 1977, the Voyager used the gravity of each planet in the specific alignment to travel across space, ensuring its specific path and allowing it to travel farther than any spacecraft before.