Space History
Saturn V, Apollo, the Space Shuttle, and the technology that shaped spaceflight.
Apollo-Soyuz handshake in orbit
Thomas Stafford and Alexei Leonov shake hands through the hatch — the first international crew rendezvous in space.
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Explore the complete history of spaceflight on Space Launch Live. From the Mercury and Gemini programs that proved humans could survive in space, to the Apollo missions that landed on the Moon, to the Space Shuttle program that made orbital access routine, to today’s commercial space revolution — browse vehicles, programs, missions, technologies, and the key figures who made it all possible. Track flight statistics, success rates, program costs, and the lasting technological legacy of every major space endeavor.
Explore the vehicles, programs, and missions that defined the space age. From the V-2 to the Space Shuttle to Starship, understand the engineering legacy that modern rocketry is built on.
The space age opened fast. Germany’s V-2 became the first human-made object to reach the edge of space in 1944; the Soviet Union orbited Sputnik 1 in October 1957 and sent Yuri Gagarin around the Earth in 1961. The Cold War rivalry culminated in NASA’s Apollo program, whose 111-meter Saturn V — still the most powerful rocket to fly successfully — carried the first humans to the Moon in July 1969.
The decades since traded raw power for routine access. The reusable Space Shuttle flew 135 missions between 1981 and 2011, building the International Space Station alongside Russian, European, Japanese, and Canadian partners. Today the baton has passed to commercially-built, reusable vehicles like Falcon 9 and Starship — but every one of them stands on lessons learned from these pioneering programs. Browse the timeline below, and check On This Day for the anniversaries landing today.