[...]... potential to visit outer space The next stage of space exploration was about to begin 3  First Steps to Space germans, Soviets, and americans Although solid-fueled rockets have existed as weapons since their invention in China in the twelfth century a.d., the use of rockets for the exploration of space was a twentieth-century invention In the mid-1920s, the idea of using rockets for spaceships was subject... United States (and later in other countries) that made rockets for space exploration In the Soviet Union, state agencies formed out of the same kind of backgrounds, pioneering the way to space by the 1950s 25 26  Exploring SpacE early soviet anD german rocket research Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857–1935) was one of the first believers in space travel by rocket He worked as a high school math teacher in... astronaut CapCom spoke directly to Lovell, it helped relieve tension 11 12  Exploring SpacE Beginning with the spacecraft’s countdown on the launch tower until the time it lands back on Earth, the Mission Control Center is in charge of overseeing mission operations At the Houston Command Center, the staff was able to view broadcasts from space as Apollo 13 reported in Last used in 1992, the Houston Command... the director of the space flight center at Huntsville, Alabama, with 120 members of the original V-2 team There, von Braun directed work on the Redstone and Jupiter rockets, as well as Juno II The Juno II lifted early deep -space probes, Pioneer III and IV, as well as Explorer satellites He worked directly for NASA from 1970 to 1972, and he died at age 65 in 1977 30  Exploring SpacE engineers were... were safe Space travel had shown that exploration continued to require brave individuals Explorers of space would risk their lives, just as explorers on land and sea had done before them 15 2  Exploring the Universe From ptolemy to newton and Beyond Long before the first rockets lifted people into space, humans explored the universe without leaving Earth In the centuries before electric light, the... 1898, he published the first of three articles suggesting how to build such rockets One of his works, “Exploration of Cosmic Space by Reactive Devices,” was published in 1903 This article foresaw the future of rocket space exploration Another math teacher who became interested in space travel was Hermann Oberth (1894–1989) Oberth, who lived in Romania, began studying rockets after World War I He suggested... Germans fired more than 3,700 V-2s during the last months of the war Each one carried a one-ton warhead 2 2  Exploring SpacE Wernher von Braun headed the team of German engineers who moved to the United States after World War II to help develop rockets He is pictured with a model of a three-stage space rocket he designed while working on missile technology Many were aimed at Allied-occupied Antwerp, Belgium... fell to 12, then down to 10 and below 13 14  Exploring SpacE After the lunar module’s safe landing just a few hundred yards away from U.S Navy ships, the Apollo 13 crew were onboard the Iwo Jima within 45 minutes Here, they step down from the rescue helicopter aboard the Iwo Jima splashDoWn One by one, the technical problems were solved on the ground and in space by the astronauts Haise was now suffering... miles (392 km), a record held until 1956 The navy paid for studies that led to a successful flight of the Viking rocket in 1954 The Viking took one of the first pictures of Earth 33 34  Exploring SpacE from outer space, showing the curvature out over the Pacific Ocean The U.S Air Force contracted with North American Aviation, which hired some of von Braun’s staff Building on the V-2 experience, they... of years ago 16 Exploring the Universe  The ancient astrologers collected details about the stars They named the constellations and many of the brightest stars They also tracked the paths of the planets that they could see: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn The exploration of the universe had begun Still, its meaning and the way it worked remained full of mystery Some early space explorers . Exploring North America, 1800–1900, Revised Edition Exploring Space, Revised Edition Exploring Space Revised Edition RODNEY P. CARLISLE JOHN S. BOWMAN and MAURICE ISSERMAN General Editors Exploring. Problem” 7 2 exPloring tHe universe: From Ptolemy to neWton and beyond 16 3 First stePs to sPace: germans, soviets, and americans 25 4 tHe race For tHe moon 40 5 sPace stations 50 6 tHe sPace. monitor fell to 12, then down to 10 and below. 14  Exploring SpacE splashDoWn One by one, the technical problems were solved on the ground and in space by the astronauts. Haise was now suffering