Chapter 10: American Space Travel

Chapter 10: American Space Travel

In 1958, the US Government formed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to be responsible for the American space programme. But the Americans weren’t the first people to fly into space. In 1961, a Russian, Yuri Gagarin, became the first person to fly around the Earth. His flight took 108 minutes. Later that year, the first American, Alan Shepard, flew into space and in 1962, NASA sent John Glenn into space to orbit the Earth.

In 1961, President Kennedy challenged NASA to send a man to the moon and return him safely to Earth. NASA immediately started the Apollo programme and in 1969, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins started their journey to the moon in Apollo 11. On 20th July, 1969, the entire world watched as Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon, saying the famous words, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

NASA also explored other planets in the solar system. In 1976, a spacecraft called Viking I landed on Mars. Another spacecraft, Mars Pathfinder, landed there in 1996. The Pathfinder had a robot vehicle inside called a rover. This robot explored Mars and sent 16,500 pictures back to Earth with 8.5 million measurements. NASA lost contact with the Pathfinder in September, 1997.

In the 1980s, the USA started to develop a space shuttle - a reusable space vehicle. Sadly, two space shuttles, Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003, exploded and all the astronauts inside them died.

Most space projects today are international because they are very expensive. For example, the International Space Station is a laboratory in orbit around the Earth. It is a combined effort between Japan, Russia, the USA, Canada and Europe. They do experiments and test equipment for flights to Mars. The Space Station is a good example of international cooperation.