9781422270011

Astronauts Neil Armstrong (left) and Buzz Aldrin (right) deploy the US flag after becoming the first humans to land on the moon on July 20, 1969.

During the 1950s and 1960s, the Soviet Union (which dissolved in 1991, with many of its remnants now grouped together and known as Russia ) also accomplished amazing things in space. Examples include launching Sputnik I, the world’s first artificial satellite, in October 1957, and launching the first human, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, into space in April 1961. In addition, China began making advancements in space in the 1970s and has continued to advance its space program since then. For nearly three decades, the United States, Soviet Union, and China were the main players in space flight. That changed in 1990, when the aerospace company Orbital Sciences Corporation launched Pegasus—the first launch vehicle that was fully developed by a private company. Until 2001, astronauts were the only humans to travel to space. That changed on April 30 of that year when US businessman Dennis Tito became the world’s first space

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COOL CAREERS IN SCIENCE: SPACE SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS