Pictures From the Space Conquest

Space conquest afficionados will find on that page, varied pictures illustrating the successive steps, until today, of reaching to space!

The 1940's and The 1950's The Space Age Begins! The 1960's

The Apollo Program The 1970-1980's The Most Recent Years

The 1940's and The 1950's

With the 1940's and the treasure-troved in Germany by the end of WW2, the USA and the USSR soon engaged into the missile era, which were further provided with nuclear heads

	A view of the activites of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or NACA which was, since March 1915, the U.S. agency dedicated to aeronautics. In 1958, it was used like the foundation for the NASA. Here is seen NACA chief pilot preparing to test a Curtiss BF2C-1 Goshawk plane, which was used by the U.S. Navy in the early 1930s. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NACA
	Before being involved into the space conquest, the JPL, in California was developing missiles for the U.S. Army since WWII. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech
	A view of how first space experimental U.S. launches mostly based upon the German V-2 missiles, which had been captured in Germany by the end of WWII. Here a Bumper 2, in 1950, a two-stage rocket, with Corporal rocket topping a V-2 and launching from Cape Canaveral, Fla. That set was able to reach almost 250 miles of altitude. The Corporal is the small, thin missile seen atop the familiar shape of the V-2. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA

The Space Age Begins!

The nuclear ballistic missiles standoff between the two actors of the Cold War eventually bursted into the space age, on October 4th, 1957, when the USSR eventually placed into orbit its first ever manmade artifical satellite, the 'Sputnik'. A series of premieres and coup rapidly succeded each other

	The Soviet Sputnik, on October 4th, 1957, became the first ever manmade artificial satellite of the Earth. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA
	A U.S. Navy Vanguard rocket going awry on Dec. 6, 1957 when the rocket failed to develop sufficient thrust and toppled over on the launch pad. The malfunctioning first stage caused vehicle to lose thrust after two seconds, dooming the Vanguard Test Vehicle 3' (TV3). The rocket was to place a satelllite in Earth orbit for the International Geophysical Year, in response to the successfull launch of Sputnik by the Soviets on the previous Oct. 4!. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy U.S. Navy
	The Explorer 1 is sitting atop the Jupiter-C rocket (designated Juno-1) in the gantry as its launch date nears. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA
	The Explorer 1 launching from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on January 31st, 1958, the American, swift response to the launch of the Sputnik. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA
	A technician preparing the Soviet Objet D, or the Sputnik 3 satellite for flight. click to a larger picture. picture site 'Amateur Astronomy'
	A Soviet launcher with the Sputnik 3 launching on May 15th, 1958 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. click to a larger picture. picture site 'Amateur Astronomy'
	Dr. Wernher von Braun (left) showing the details on a Saturn rocket to President Dwight D. Eisenhower (right) in September 8th, 1960. Von Braun and President Eisenhower both were decisive actors during the beginnings of the U.S. space conquest. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA
	Echo, the first U.S. communication satellite, a Mylar balloon which inflated to 100 feet of diameter once in orbit, allowing to the passive reflection the radio transmissions from one ground station to another. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA
	Yuri Gagarin became a USSR heroe and icon when he was the first ever man to fly in orbit about the Earth aboard his Vostok 1 on April 12th, 1961. His flight lasted 108 minutes. Yuri Gagarin died at 34, on March 27, 1968 as he was training aboard a a MiG-15 fighter plane with his instructor. The picture is showing Gagarin on his way to launch pad, with Gherman Titov, one of both back-up pilots, behind. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA
	The seven Project Mercury astronauts. Left to right, are M. Scott Carpenter, L. Gordon Cooper Jr., John H. Glenn Jr., Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Walter M. Schirra Jr., Alan B. Shepard Jr. and Donald K. "Deke" Slayton. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA
	The Mercury 3 capsule Freedom 7, with Alan Shepard aboard, on May 5th 1961, taking-off to the first US suborbital flight. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA

The 1960's

The 1960's was the decade when the space age mostly kept on being a series of premieres between the USA and the USSR, responding to each other, before it became the one of the race to Moon, as triggered by President J.F. Kennedy's famed May 25th, 1961 address

	Major John Glenn enters his Friendship 7 capsule with assistance from technicians for his historic flight of Feb. 20, 1962, when he became the first American to orbit the Earth. Glenn launched from Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 14. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA
	The Atlas rocket carrying John Glenn and his Mercury capsule seen lifting off Feb. 20, 1962, from Launch Complex 14 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA
	In September 1963, engineers and technicians in Hangar S, prepare Wally Schirra's Mercury 8 capsule named 'Sigma 7.' The spacecraft soon would be transported to Launch Pad 14 to be mated to the Atlas launch vehicle. click to a larger picture. picture site 'Amateur Astronomy' based upon a picture courtesy NASA
	First women in space, Russian Valentina V. Tereshkova, in 1963 (left), and U.S. Sally Ride (right) who flew by 1983 only. click to a larger picture. picture site 'Amateur Astronomy'
	A Gemini mission launching. The Gemini program was a transitional of sort towards the Apollo program. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA
	Astronaut Ed White performing the first U.S. spacewalk, on June 3rd, 1965. It lasted 23 minutes as it was performed during the Gemini 4 mission. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA
	The first U.S. rendezvous in space, which was performed on Dec. 4, 1965, between two Gemini capsules during the Gemini VI and VII missions. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA
	dawn above the Andes Mountains, in Bolivia, as seen from the orbit by the Gemini 7 mission. East is at the upper right. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA
	a picture of the Earth and the surface of the Moon as taken by one of the five Lunar Orbiter scout spacecraft, which were sent to the Moon in 1966 and 1967, to allow for selecting the landing sites of the Apollo program. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA/LOIRP
	A Ranger probe, one of the series of spacecraft, which provided live TV transmissions of the Moon's surface, and paving the way, with more than 17,000 images, in the mid-1960s for the Apollo landings. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA

The Apollo Program

With the promise by President John F. Kennedy, in May 1961, to have men land on the Moon and to have them safely back, the U.S.A. put the stakes at a higher level as far as the space race was concerned, with it now aiming Moon! And the U.S.A. won as the Apollo 11 mission landed on Moon on July 20th, 1969, in the Sea of Tranquillity

->Where in the USA You Can See a Saturn V?
Three Saturn V rockets are on display in the USA. A one is to be seen at the Kennedy Space Center, a one in Houston, at the Johnson Space Center (where the Saturn V it owned was renovated in 2008) as, more recently, a third one has been renovated by the NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama and now kept in the neighboring, state-owned museum, the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, which includes hundreds of artifacts from the earliest days of the U.S. space program. The Saturn V rocket of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center was named a national historic landmark in 1984 and is owned by the Smithsonian Institution

	A lunar mission Command and Service Module (CSM), which was comprising the capsule where the crewmembers staid during most of the mission, and a service module behind. The CSM kept onto the lunar orbit while the LM was landing on the surface of the Moon. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA
	The Apollo 10 launch stack as seen during launch pad rollout. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA
	The most iconic picture of the Apollo program, astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, during the Apollo 11 mission, the one who first landed on the Moon, on July 20th, 1969. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA
	A 19-mile wide lunar crater as seen, from orbit, on the far side of the Moon, during the Apollo 11 mission. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA
	The Soviet lunar heavy rocket, the N1, on the assembly line. Despite their efforts to a Moon rocket as powerful than the Saturn V, the Soviets could not afford to the Moon race and eventually lost it. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA
	Soviet lunar rocket N1's 1M1 mockup on the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in late 1967, which was used for integration tests. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)
	A declassified US reconnaissance satellite image of the same N1 rocket during a later rollout in September 1968. Such a intelligence falsely let NASA think that Russians kept part of the Moon race. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)

The 1970-1980's

When the Apollo program ended, by the end of 1972, the space race mostly then turned into the exploration of the solar system and the first exploitation of the low Earth orbit for obtaining varied data

	the Skylab, an U.S. experimental space station in 1973-1974. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy Marshall Space Flight Center, Kennedy Space Center
	The 1975, Viking 2 lander as seen in the plains of Utopia Planitia, at Mars. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA/JPL
	One of the Voyager spacecraft, those missions which initially had been restricted to Jupiter and Saturn, and turned into a grand tour of the solar system and interstellar explorers. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA

The Most Recent Years

As the exploration of the solar system keeping on and the USSR was replaced by Russia, the most recent years have seen the apparition of new space actors, or the building of the International Space Station

	Between 1994 and 1998 a joint Mir-Space Shuttle program allowed both Russia and the U.S.A. to acquire experience in terms of a space station. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA
	The International Space Station (ISS), an international project since 1998. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA
	A Russian Soyouz spacecraft, taking-off from the Kasakstan's Baikonur cosmodrome, as such Russian craft became part of the way used to reach the International Space Station, or to come Earth from there. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA/Bill Ingalls
	A modern planetary mission launching atop a Boeing Delta II, from the Kennedy Space Center. click to a larger picture. picture courtesy NASA