Sixty years ago, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin made history when he became the first man to fly into space. Gagarin spent 108 minutes in a tiny Vostok 1 space capsule, completing an orbit around the Earth on April 12, 1961. His groundbreaking mission raised the stakes in the space race between the Soviet Union and the United States. Here are some other famous firsts in the history of space exploration.
Less than a month after Gagarin’s trip, astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American to travel into space. On May 5, 1961, Shepard piloted Freedom 7, the first manned mission in the Mercury program.Sputnik I, the world’s first satellite, was launched by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957. It orbited the Earth every 98 minutes.Laika the dog is pictured aboard Sputnik II on November 13, 1957. She was the first animal to orbit the Earth. The mission provided valuable data that paved the way for future human spaceflight.John Glenn, aboard the Friendship 7, became the first American to orbit the Earth on February 20, 1962. He later set a record as the oldest astronaut in space at age 77.Valentina Tereshkova, seen here with Yuri Gagarin, is the first woman to fly into space, piloting the Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963.Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was the first human to die during a space mission when the Soyuz 1 spacecraft crashed during its return to Earth on April 23, 1967.On July 20, 1969, the Apollo 11 mission put the first humans on the moon. Neil Armstrong famously declared, ‘That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.’Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin salutes the US flag on the lunar surface, becoming the second man to walk on the moon after Neil Armstrong.This is the first photograph of Earth’s south polar ice cap, taken by the crew of Apollo 17 as they traveled to the moon in December 1972.Skylab, the United States’ first space station, operated from 1973 to 1979 after the Soviet Union launched their first space station, Salyut, in 1971.On July 15, 1975, the United States and the Soviet Union embarked on their first joint space mission, successfully linking the Soyuz and Apollo spacecraft.Gen. Arnaldo Tamayo Mendez became the first Latin American, African descent and Cuban to fly in space aboard the Soviet Soyuz 38 on September 18, 1980.Columbia made the first orbital flight of NASA’s space shuttle program on April 12, 1981, marking a significant leap in human space exploration.Sally Ride made history as the first American woman to enter space aboard the space shuttle Challenger in June 1983.Guion ‘Guy’ Bluford became the first African-American to serve in space as a mission specialist on the space shuttle Challenger in 1983.In February 1984, astronaut Bruce McCandless became the first astronaut to float in space untethered using a device known as the Manned Maneuvering Unit.Jan Davis and Mark Lee made history as the first married couple to fly into space together on the space shuttle Endeavour in 1992.SpaceX executed the first commercial space mission by sending an unmanned capsule with supplies to the International Space Station on October 7, 2012.NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft provided the first close-up images of Pluto, furthering our understanding of the solar system’s classical planets.
