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From our small world, called Earth - the blue planet, we have gazed upon the cosmic ocean for untold thousands of years. Ancient astronomers observed points of light that appeared to move among the stars. They called these objects planets, meaning wanderers, and named them after Roman deities - Jupiter, king of the gods; Mars, the god of war; Mercury, messenger of the gods; Venus, the god of love and beauty, and Saturn, father of Jupiter and god of agriculture. The stargazers also observed comets with sparkling tails, and meteors or shooting stars apparently falling from the sky.
Science flourished during the European Renaissance. Fundamental physical laws governing planetary motion were discovered, and the orbits of the planets around the Sun were calculated. In the 17th century, astronomers pointed a new device called the telescope at the heavens and made startling discoveries.
But the years since 1959 have amounted to a golden age of solar system exploration. Advancements in rocketry after World War II enabled our machines to break the grip of Earth´s gravity and travel to the Moon and to other planets.
The United States has sent automated spacecraft, then human-crewed expeditions, to explore the Moon. Our automated machines have orbited and landed on Venus and Mars, explored the Sun´s environment, observed comets, and asteroids, and made close-range surveys while flying past Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
These travelers brought a quantum leap in our knowledge and understanding of the solar system. Through the electronic sight and other "senses" of our automated spacecraft, color and complexion have been given to worlds that for centuries appeared to Earth-bound eyes as fuzzy disks or indistinct points of light. And dozen of previously unknown objects have been discovered.
Future historians will likely view these pioneering flights through the solar system as some of the most remarkable achievements of the 20th century.
But from the moment we knew that we are only a small point in a gigantic galaxis we had one question. And this question is still unanswered: Are we alone ? Is something out there ?
It was a long way to reach the point on which we are today. The rocket was not developed as a research tool. No - it was a weapon. The earliest solid rocket fuel was a form of gunpowder, and the earliest recorded mention of gunpowder comes from China late in the third century before Christ.
There were a lot of trials to start a rocket, but most of them failed or crashed a view kilometers from the launch site.
On 3rd October 1942 a rocket roared aloft from Peenemuende, followed ist programmed trajectory perfectly, and landed on target 193 kilometers away. This launch can fairly be said to mark the beginning of the space age. The A4, this was the name of the rocket, the first succesful ballistic rocket, ist the ancestor of practically every rocket flown in the world today. Production of the A4 began in 1943 and the first A4s, now renamed V2s, were launched against London in September 1944. The V-2 offensive came too late to affect the course of the war. By April 1945, the German Army was in full retreat everywhere and Hitler had committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin. The rocket team had been ordered by Hitler to be exuecuted prevent their capture. But they contacted the American forces before Hitlers´s SS henchmen could reach the rocket team. On May 2, the same day Berlin fell to the Soviet Army, von Braun and his rocket team entered American lines and safety. Fact is: Adolf Hitler takes a big part in the developing of rockets.
Now I will give you a chronological overview of space Exploration.
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