Technology
never stops.
Pick an era and watch everything change color — the rest of the story is just a scroll away.
Faster,
every time.
Space Exploration
One beeping satellite to reusable rockets landing themselves
Space travel spent its first fifty years as a two-nation government project — and its next twenty becoming a competitive, reusable, commercial industry.
Sputnik 1
The Soviet Union launches the first artificial satellite, a beeping 58cm sphere that starts the space race overnight.
Orbited every 96 min
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First human in orbit
Yuri Gagarin becomes the first person in space, completing one orbit of Earth aboard Vostok 1 in 108 minutes.
Altitude: 327 km
4 years after the last leap
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Apollo 11 Moon landing
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first humans to walk on another world, watched live by roughly 600 million people.
384,400 km from Earth
8 years after the last leap
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Apollo-Soyuz Test Project
American and Soviet spacecraft dock in orbit for the first time, a symbolic handshake in space between two Cold War rivals.
First US–Soviet joint mission
6 years after the last leap
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Space Shuttle
The first reusable crewed orbital spacecraft flies, aiming to make trips to orbit as routine as a scheduled flight.
135 missions flown
6 years after the last leap
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Hubble Space Telescope
A telescope launched into orbit above the atmosphere's blur starts returning the deepest, sharpest images of the universe ever captured.
1.5M+ observations to date
9 years after the last leap
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International Space Station
The first module of the ISS launches, beginning what becomes over two uninterrupted decades of continuous human presence in orbit.
25+ years continuously crewed
8 years after the last leap
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Falcon 1 reaches orbit
SpaceX becomes the first privately funded company to put a liquid-fueled rocket into orbit, opening space to commercial competition.
First private orbital launch
10 years after the last leap
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First orbital rocket landing
A Falcon 9 first stage lands upright after launching a payload to orbit, proving rockets can be reused instead of discarded.
Booster reused 20+ times since
7 years after the last leap
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Starship catch & reuse
SpaceX catches a returning Super Heavy booster with launch-tower arms, testing full and rapid reusability for a rocket built for Mars.
Tallest rocket ever flown
9 years after the last leap
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