170
3 A Brief History of Space Flight
research station was set up; the Lunar Roving Vehicle traversed a total of 30.5 km;
the lunar surface-stay time was 75 h; the astronauts gathered 110.4 kg of material.
The Apollo Program is the largest-scale astronautic project so far, which took
11 years and cost $25.4 billion in 1973 dollars. More than 20,000 enterprises, more
than 80 scientific research institutions and more than 200 universities participated
in the project, with a total number of more than 300,000 people. The successful
implementation and achievements of the Apollo Program have a significant and farreaching impact on politics, economy, science and technology in the United States
and even the world. As the greatest space project and feat in the twentieth century,
the Apollo Program has made its mark in history.
3.6 Flying Out of the Solar System
In January 1959, the world’s first vehicle to explore the Moon, Luna-1, was successfully launched by the Soviet Union, whose primary objectives were: to measure
temperature and pressure inside the vehicle and the magnetic fields of the Earth and
Moon; to study the gas components of interplanetary matter and corpuscular radiation from the Sun, the meteoric particles in space, the distribution of heavy nuclei in
primary cosmic radiation, and other properties of cosmic rays. However, due to an
incorrectly-timed upper stage burned during its launch, Luna-1 only passed through
within 5995 km away from the Moon’s surface, and went into an orbit around the
Sun, between the orbits of the Earth and Mars, becoming the first spacecraft to leave
geocentric orbit. Despite not becoming a satellite around the Moon, Luna-1 opened
the prelude of human space flight into the solar system. So far, more than 200 deepspace probes have been launched successively, to explore the Moon, planets in the
solar system, comets and asteroids, and even land on the celestial bodies and sample
back to the Earth. Nevertheless, for the vast universe, the interplanetary space flight
in the solar system is insignificant. Flying out of the solar system, to sail into the
interstellar space, explore the origin, evolution and current situation of the universe,
and even look for extraterrestrial civilization, is the ultimate goal pursued by human
beings.
In the 1970s, Pioneer-10, Pioneer-11, Voyager-1 and Voyager-2 launched successfully by the United States, were the first man-made vehicles to fly to the edge of the
solar system, roaming in the vast universe, carrying a lot of information about the
Earth’s development history and human civilization, and looking forward to meeting
with extraterrestrial civilization one day. Although such opportunity is very slim,
humanity on the Earth still place great hopes on it. In addition, the New Horizons
probe was launched by the NASA in 2006, to investigate the outer space of the solar
system in detail.
3 A Brief History of Space Flight
research station was set up; the Lunar Roving Vehicle traversed a total of 30.5 km;
the lunar surface-stay time was 75 h; the astronauts gathered 110.4 kg of material.
The Apollo Program is the largest-scale astronautic project so far, which took
11 years and cost $25.4 billion in 1973 dollars. More than 20,000 enterprises, more
than 80 scientific research institutions and more than 200 universities participated
in the project, with a total number of more than 300,000 people. The successful
implementation and achievements of the Apollo Program have a significant and farreaching impact on politics, economy, science and technology in the United States
and even the world. As the greatest space project and feat in the twentieth century,
the Apollo Program has made its mark in history.
3.6 Flying Out of the Solar System
In January 1959, the world’s first vehicle to explore the Moon, Luna-1, was successfully launched by the Soviet Union, whose primary objectives were: to measure
temperature and pressure inside the vehicle and the magnetic fields of the Earth and
Moon; to study the gas components of interplanetary matter and corpuscular radiation from the Sun, the meteoric particles in space, the distribution of heavy nuclei in
primary cosmic radiation, and other properties of cosmic rays. However, due to an
incorrectly-timed upper stage burned during its launch, Luna-1 only passed through
within 5995 km away from the Moon’s surface, and went into an orbit around the
Sun, between the orbits of the Earth and Mars, becoming the first spacecraft to leave
geocentric orbit. Despite not becoming a satellite around the Moon, Luna-1 opened
the prelude of human space flight into the solar system. So far, more than 200 deepspace probes have been launched successively, to explore the Moon, planets in the
solar system, comets and asteroids, and even land on the celestial bodies and sample
back to the Earth. Nevertheless, for the vast universe, the interplanetary space flight
in the solar system is insignificant. Flying out of the solar system, to sail into the
interstellar space, explore the origin, evolution and current situation of the universe,
and even look for extraterrestrial civilization, is the ultimate goal pursued by human
beings.
In the 1970s, Pioneer-10, Pioneer-11, Voyager-1 and Voyager-2 launched successfully by the United States, were the first man-made vehicles to fly to the edge of the
solar system, roaming in the vast universe, carrying a lot of information about the
Earth’s development history and human civilization, and looking forward to meeting
with extraterrestrial civilization one day. Although such opportunity is very slim,
humanity on the Earth still place great hopes on it. In addition, the New Horizons
probe was launched by the NASA in 2006, to investigate the outer space of the solar
system in detail.