History of Space Travel: From Sputnik to Apollo

The history of space travel began with the launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth, by the Soviet Union in 1957. This event sparked the Space Race, a competition between the United States and the Soviet Union to achieve milestones in space exploration. In 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel into space, while American astronaut Neil Armstrong made history as the first person to walk on the moon in 1969 as part of the Apollo 11 mission. These early space endeavors laid the foundation for future space exploration programs, including the development of space stations, the Hubble Space Telescope, and ongoing missions to Mars.