ROCKET HISTORY

Leonardo Da Vinci

Inventor of the first recorded autonomous self-propelled device, a cart and robot.

Chinese

First to use gunpowder to propel arrows.

A.D

Year when the Chinese used gunpowder to propel arrows.

Traditional Chinese rocket making

Ended with the creation of the rocket.

Great Britain and the Americans

Nations that used the "Congreve" rocket in a war situation.

Tsiolkovsky

Teacher, theorist, and astronautics pioneer who wrote and taught about human space travel.

Goddard

American college professor and scientist who built and flew the world's first liquid propellant rocket.

Oberth

Author of a book explaining the mathematics of spaceflight and proposing practical rocket designs and space stations.

Von Braun

Creator of the V2 missile and director of the German V2 rocket program.

Sputnik 1

First artificial satellite in space launched by the USSR.

October 4, 1957

Year when Sputnik 1 was put into space.

Yuri Gagarin

First human in space, a Russian.

NASA

National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

MERCURY

U.S. mission designed to put a man into orbit around the Earth.

GEMINI

Mission to practice spacewalks, docking procedures, and study the effects of outer space.

APOLLO

Mission to leave and re-enter Earth's atmosphere, fulfilling President JFK's goal.

VIKING

Mission to investigate Mars and search for signs of life.

1969

Year when mankind landed on the moon.

Skylab and International Space Station

Names of two orbiting space stations used in space.

1961

Year when a "manned" rocket was launched into space.

China

Nation that first used a kind of gunpowder to propel “fire arrows”, with a star gazer later using the rockets to try and launch himself

USSR

Nation that put the first artificial satellite into space