— Ch. 1 · Cold War Space Race Origins —
Human spaceflight.
~6 min read · Ch. 1 of 6
On the 12th of April 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit Earth aboard Vostok 1. This single flight ignited a geopolitical firestorm between Washington and Moscow that would define space exploration for decades. The United States had launched its first satellite in 1958, but the Soviets beat them again with Sputnik in 1957. President John F. Kennedy raised the stakes by declaring a goal to land a man on the Moon before the end of the 1960s. That same year, the US began Project Mercury to launch men into orbit. Alan Shepard flew as the first American in space on the 5th of May 1961 aboard Freedom 7. Unlike Gagarin, Shepard manually controlled his spacecraft's attitude during his suborbital flight. John Glenn became the first American in orbit on the 20th of February 1962 aboard Friendship 7. The USSR secretly pursued lunar ambitions while adapting their Vostok capsule to carry two or three people in Voskhod missions. Alexei Leonov performed the first spacewalk on the 18th of March 1965 during Voskhod 2. By 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space aboard Vostok 6. Through 1963, the US launched four astronauts into orbit and two on suborbital flights. The competition drove rapid technological advances in rocketry and life support systems.
Apollo Moon Landing Era
In December 1968, Apollo 8 sent Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders on ten orbits around the Moon. This mission proved humans could travel beyond low Earth orbit. On the 21st of July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the lunar surface during Apollo 11. They returned safely to Earth on the 24th of July 1972. Six Apollo missions landed twelve men to walk on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. Half of these crews drove electric powered vehicles across the lunar terrain. Apollo 10 reached the fastest speed ever traveled by a human at 39,897 km/h on the 26th of May 1969. The crew of Apollo 13 survived an in-flight spacecraft failure in April 1970. James Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise flew by the Moon without landing and returned safely to Earth. An oxygen tank burst when electrical power was applied to internal stirring fans. The crew used the lunar landing craft as a lifeboat to survive. Through 1972, a total of six Apollo missions landed 12 men to walk on the Moon. The program demonstrated that humans could endure two weeks in space and perform complex maneuvers like rendezvous and docking.