USA History of Space Flights [Part I. Pioneering Past]

Space is the antonym of Earth, isn’t it? It’s something that exists out there – unreachable, fierce, and too grandiose to embrace. This perception held true from the earliest days of our conscious history until the dawn of the 20th century. While we briefly touched the sky with air balloons and early planes, it took the brilliance of minds, technological advancements, the competitive edge of war, and an unyielding desire to explore the unknown to overcome Earth's gravitational pull.

So, what do I want to say with all this? I want to share a 3-part series of posts about the history of US space exploration. Why this geographical focus? Because I had a rare opportunity to hop on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure exploring NASA centers across America on a humble bus tour.

I decided to compile bits of history, insights, and impressions to guide you through the relatively young discipline of space exploration in 3 consecutive segments: the past, the present, and the future. Let’s get back in time first.

War, an ultimate trigger of innovation

It all began with World War II. The Nazis, adept at inventing new ways of striking distant targets with precise and wrecking rockets, created ballistic missiles. The revolutionary instrument of mass destruction known as the V-2 (Vengeance Weapon) was first launched in 1942, and approximately 3000 were used by Germany to bombard Europe, leaving a detrimental impact. This caught the attention of the two superpowers competing for supremacy—the United States and the Soviet Union—both intrigued by the technology behind these "super" rockets.

Throughout the war, Americans and Soviets intercepted V-2s, dissecting them to replicate and advance rocket designs. Though the US were very determined about their win, it "hired" Wernher von Braun, the very creator of V-2, the German engineer behind the V-2, to develop rockets. While guys from the Soviet Union developed a missile prototype through their own efforts.

And the Arms & Space Race began.

It was the 1950s, when the post-war sentiment morphed into ambitious and utopian dreams about space exploration. Space became the perfect arena for the competition between capitalism (United States) and communism (Soviet Union). While the motives of the both sides weren’t entirely noble, the tense rivalry fueled the technological advancement. But at the same time, it pushed the world to the edge of peace, with people living under the constant shadow of a nuclear war and mass destruction of the life itself.

But why a nuclear war? In the 1930s, a series of scientific breakthroughs in physics shed light on the nature of atom and its scary potential. Turned out that some chemical elements could contain and release enormous amounts of energy when manipulated correctly. This revelation laid the foundation for nuclear bombs, releasing energy in the form of a blast, a fireball, visible light, and radioactive ionizing rays.

Germany harnessed the power of this revolutionary discovery by constructing nuclear weapons that could be launched via ballistic missiles, capable of reaching any part of the world in no time. For the record, nuclear artillery has been deployed only twice in history– when the USA dropped nuclear bombs on on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, resulting in the deaths of 200,000 people and widespread devastation.

Nuclear weapons derive their colossal energy from nuclear reactions. Fission is a radioactive decay process, where an atom of uranium is bombarded by a neutron that splits it in two atoms, releasing great amounts of energy.

Let's send some object into space already!

The race for power and ambition peaked as the Soviet Union's ballistic missile catapulted the first man-made object into space. A relatively diminutive metal sphere weighing around 80 kg with antennas, the 'Sputnik' satellite, marked the inception of human-made entities in space. It orbited our planet for three weeks in 1957, transmitting signals throughout its global journey—signals easily intercepted by amateur radios worldwide. The Americans grew paranoid. Why? The ability to launch a satellite suggested the potential to launch nuclear warheads, reaching the U.S. within minutes with grim consequences.

It added even more fuel to the competition. Just a year later, in 1958, the USA launched their own satellite, Explorer-1. Orbiting Earth for a substantial four months, it provided invaluable data. Thanks to its efforts, the existence of the Van Allen radiation belt was confirmed—a region of energetic charged particles, primarily from the solar wind, captured and held around a planet by its magnetic field. This discovery revealed that our atmosphere shields us from the detrimental effects of radiation.

And just like that, those small but mighty technological marvels kickstarted our intimate and empirical relationship with the universe. From the 1960s onwards, lots of spacecrafts were sent everywhere where they could aim: the Moon, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn. In 1972 and 1973, we arranged a one-way-trip into the uncharted depths beyond our Solar system. Pioneer-10 and -11 spacecrafts were blessed to pave new cosmos itineraries.

As of 2019, the spacecrafts are projected to be 122.594 astronomical units (au) from Earth, roughly 11.4 billion miles away, hurtling through space at a speed of 11.947 km/s relative to the Sun. Yet, these little space explorers aren't traveling empty-handed. In case they stumble upon an alien civilization, they carry a sort of business card for our planet and civilization – a gold-anodized aluminum plaque containing a message encoded in a picture (see below).

Now it's time to put humans out there

Once again, the Soviets beat their competition at sending the first human into space. On April 12 1961, Yuri Gagarin was the first human to reach the mighty cosmos and orbit the Earth. His spacecraft was remotely controlled from the mission control. Btw, animals were the actual pioneers in testing the unknown waters, with dogs and monkeys preceding human space travel. This precaution was taken due to the speculation, rooted in a lack of experiments, that a human brain might explode in the vacuum of space, even within a helmet.

Don't worry. As per usual, the Americans caught up pretty quickly. On May 5 of the same year, Alan Shepard gazed upon Earth from above, manually controlling his spacecraft as he orbited our planet.

That's what ignited the Apollo program in 1961, the third manned mission of the United States. We all know how it turned out. By the end of the decade, on July 20 1969, the Apollo 11 mission was successfully completed, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin nailing a flawless landing on the Moon. What were they doing there? Riding a cool car and collecting lunar samples (21 kg!), while their third teammate, Michael Collins, patiently waited in the command. The entire mission fitted in 8 days timeframe, from liftoff to Earth landing.

That mighty feat caused the greatest shift in mindset. If people could land on a celestial object, is there anything we actually can't do? However, it soon turned out that rock-solid drive and motivation wouldn't propel us beyond the boundaries of the unknown. The pursuit of such grandiose objectives demands a sophisticated toolbox – technologies that, to this day, remain somewhat in an embryonic state.

Back to basics: how it all works anyway

To comprehend the intricacies of rocket science (though this post isn't focused on that), it's crucial to understand the principles behind it, particularly the concept of gravity—an invisible force that anchors all things and prevents them from flying off into space. Gravity, for this reason, is a huge challenge for rockets on their journey to space. Currently, the explosion propelling a rocket upward is the only means of breaking free from the grippy pull of gravitation.

Given that a rocket serves as a mode of transportation for satellites, gargantuan space equipment, and even spacecraft, it requires immense amounts of energy (fuel) to carry substantial payloads. However, there is a small trick to ease this uneasy task – let's call it Earth's design. By building launch sites near the equator, scientists and engineers exploit an additional boost from our planet's rotation. With the Earth rotating on its axis at 1675 km/h, launching a rocket towards the east provides that extra push, making it a tad easier to escape the gravitational pull of our home planet.

Rocket science becomes a real head-scratcher due to the varying conditions in the various layers of the atmosphere that the rocket passes over. Typically, a rocket requires three distinct parts or stages, each with its own fuel tanks, which are sequentially detached during the ascent.

Let's get into more details using the renowned Saturn-V rocket as an example. This powerhouse was successfully employed 13 times and transported a total of 12 astronauts to the Moon. Notably, the Saturn-V stands as the sole launch vehicle to date that has carried humans beyond low Earth orbit. With 111 meters and 2.8 million kilograms of mightiness, the Saturn-V comprises three stages, each equipped with engines tailored to meet the demands of different altitudes and mission requirements.

● The first stage, the heaviest, carries the most fuel and propels the rocket off the launch pad
● The second stage maneuvers the Apollo spacecraft into Earth orbit and propels it towards the Moon. Once their tasks are fulfilled, the first two stages are discarded into the ocean
● The third stage remains in space, enabling the separation and lunar landing of the lunar module on the Moon

To the Moon and beyond? Well, not really

A quick recap of achievements: 12 people set their foot on the Moon, marking just the beginning. Enter Skylab, a space laboratory launched in 1973 by the trusty Saturn-V rocket. Skylab aimed at exploring human adaptability to living and working in space while observing the Sun. However, that project was eventually terminated due to high costs of crew and cargo transportations to the station. There were no reusable rockets at that time, so each launch required tremendous amounts of money and fuel.

So NASA shifted their focus towards the Space Shuttle program, standing for manned reusable launch vehicles. This project objective was to aid in the International Space Station assembly. Having successfully left the Earth in 1981 for the first time, the Columbia space shuttle consisted of an orbiter, attached to the two rocket boosters, and an external fuel tank. It was designed to carry massive payloads into orbit and recover satellites. After the shuttle’s mission was accomplished, it re-entered the atmosphere and landed like a regular jet (but with a parachute).

In 1990, Columbia delivered parts of the International Space Station and deployed the remarkable Hubble Space Telescope. With its potent lenses, Hubble became our cosmic eyes, offering insights into distant galaxies. Thanks to Hubble observations, we discovered that the Universe's expansion isn't slowing down but accelerating. Unfortunately, NASA bid farewell to the Shuttle program in 2011, compelled by skyrocketing costs (bearing in mind NASA's reliance on taxpayers' money) and tragic accidents.

The once-potent dreams of exploring the outer reaches of our Universe, fueled by the conflict between two superpowers, now quietly recede into the backdrop…

The end of the Space Race... and space exploration?

The end of the Cold War (1989) is usually associated with the fall of the Berlin Wall that divided Germany into capitalist and communist halves, which also represented a broader division between capitalism and communism. With relations defrosting between the USA and the Soviet Union, East Berlin officials announced their readiness to build trust and cooperation with the West.

Just imagine how the 20th century space-related achievements raised the bar for future hopes and aspirations of brilliant scientists to bright-eyed children. The timeless dream of touching the outer space reached numerous milestones before turning into reality: from the fist telescopic observation in 1610; the first Moon picture in 1840; to the first theoretical confirmation of space travel in 1903; the first rocket flight in 1926; and the historic moment when the V-2 rocket breached the outer space boundary in 1944.

However, the envisioned flying cars, space vacations, and encounters with alien civilizations, hyped by science-fiction musings and government assurances, left many feeling disillusioned in the 1990s. It looks like the technological advancements and unlocking of new frontiers were mainly triggered by the war and spurred further by international competition. And when those political disturbances settled, the bar for space exploration was left hanging intact, abandoned, and in vacuum.

Maybe there lies an opportunity for us to mature and learn to cooperate to achieve truly great heights? Maybe we can. At various points in history, we even came together to collaborate on colossal, planetwide ventures situated in outer space. More about these exciting stories you can read in the next post USA History of Space Flights [Part II. Present Presence]. See ya there :)