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Exploration Of Space : Space, The Final Frontier

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Space, the Final Frontier! Space exploration will benefit all aspects of humanity as well as preserving humanity itself. The Definition of space exploration simply put is “ The investigation of physical conditions in space and on stars, planets, and other celestial bodies through the use of artificial satellites, space probes and spacecraft with human crews.”

The history of our escapade into the stars started with the first artificial satellite. This satellite was launched October 4, 1957 by the USSR (now known as Russia) they gave this satellite the name of Sputnik (спутник) which means satellite in Russian. Sputnik then pushed the latent U.S. program into action, this then lead to the international competition commonly known as the “Space Race.” The U.S. quickly pushed back with the Explorer I, which was launched months after Sputnik on January 31st, 1958. In the many years to come the United States and the USSR launched close to fifty space probes to either pass extremely close or completely crash into the moon. Eventually both countries would develop probes that could actually make a successful landing and or make stable orbits around the moon with all components intact. These tasks necessitated an extreme amount of rocket power and much more accurate maneuvering. The Soviets were the first to accomplish this with their Luna series. Luna 2 had a rough landing in September of 1959, and Luna 3 managed to photograph the moon’s far side on a fly by in November of 1959.

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