Less than a year after its birth, the National Aeronautics and Space Agency announced its first astronaut class, the Mercury Seven, on April 9, 1959. Project Mercury proved that humans could live and work in space, paving the way for future human exploration.
This cutaway drawing of the Mercury capsule was used by the Space Task Group at the first NASA inspection.
NASA Media Usage Guidelines
Credit: NASA
Image Number: LRC-1961-B701_P-05741
Date: October 24, 1959
Tags: Project Mercury Mercury
Image Credit: NASA
Description Project Gemini was NASA's second human spaceflight program, with ten manned flights occurring between 1965 and 1966.
Similar in design to the Mercury capsule but much larger, the new Gemini spacecraft was designed to carry two astronauts into Earth orbit to test long-duration flight, rendezvous and docking and other technologies needed for journeys to the moon.
Tags: Project Gemini Gemini Capsule Gemini
Description The first international space mission, the Apollo-Soyuz brought into contact American and Soviet crews in outerspace.
This mission marked the end of the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. It also marked the first joint space mission between two countries. The two spacecraft worked together to perform several experiments in space.
NASA Media Usage Guidelines
Credit: NASA
Image Number: S74-24913
Date: August 1973
Tags: Project Apollo Apollo Apollo Soyuz Test Project ASTP Soyuz
Image Credit: NASA
Description GOES (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites)-1 was launched on October 16, 1975. The geostationary operational environmental satellites provided environmental data that was used mainly for tracking storms and predicting weather patterns across the globe.
Description Launched August 20, 1977 and November 5, 1977. The Voyager-1 and Voyager-2 are a pair of interstellar probes designed to study the outer solar system and then interstellar space.
Currently both probes have entered interstellar space and Voyager-1 is the farthest man made object from Earth. Both of these probes are expected to continue transmitting radio messages until 2025, although the length of their interstellar missions is indefinite.
NASA Media Usage Guidelines
Credit: NASA/JPL
Image Number: PIA04495
Date: May 9, 2003