TRAVEL TO SPACE

Space has always been a place that people have been curious about. While in the past only astronauts and spacecraft could travel through space, today people have more options for traveling to space, thanks to private space companies. However, until now, humans have only managed to go to the Moon and close orbits.

First manned voyage

During the Cold War, one of the biggest areas of rivalry between the US-led Western bloc and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) eastern bloc was "space".

After the race between the USA and the USSR to send satellites into space, the two countries started working on manned space travel in orbit.

The USSR once again surpassed its rivals with the rocket and capsule it developed under the Vostok Program. Russian cosmonaut Gagarin returned to Earth after orbiting the Earth in the "Vostok 1" space capsule launched by the "Vostok 3KA" rocket on April 12, 1961. While this expedition of Vostok 1 was the first manned space flight, Gagarin made history as the first human to go into space. Gagari's flight lasted 108 minutes and reached an altitude of 327 kilometers.

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Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the Moon

In his speech on September 12, 1962, US President John F. Kennedy pointed to the Moon as the new target of space travel and promised to send humans to the Moon within 10 years. For this purpose, the USA first produced the 2-person Gemini space shuttle, and then the 3-person Apollo space shuttle.

The "Apollo 8" space shuttle, carrying astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders, succeeded in orbiting the Moon 10 times in December 1968. Then, on July 21, 1969, the shuttle "Apollo 11", carrying astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, landed on the Moon's surface. Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the Moon during this expedition.

The phrase "One small step for me, one giant leap for humanity", used by Armstrong when he set foot on the moon, has gone down in history.

After Armstrong and Aldrin, who stepped on the surface after him, the USA brought 10 more astronauts to the lunar surface by 1972.

US-Soviet joint space travel

The US sending humans to the Moon has slowed the competition for space. The two powers have sent humans into lunar orbit multiple times.

The US shuttle Apollo and the Russian shuttle Soyuz 19 were docked in space in 1975. The astronauts of the two countries shook hands in space to contribute to the diplomatic effort in a symbolic gesture.

China made its first manned space flight in 2003

China first decided to launch manned space travel in 1967, under President Mao Zedong and Prime Minister Zu Enlai. The Shuguang spacecraft, built in the 1970s, copied from the US shuttle Gemini, failed. Years later, China developed the shuttle Shenzhou, modeled after Russia's Soyuz shuttle.

Chinese taikonaut Yang Liwei flew 21 hours in space on the Shenzhou 5 shuttle on October 15, 2003, making her country's first manned space flight.

SpaceX's first manned flight attempt

After continuing the Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavor space shuttle programs of the Apollo program, respectively, the US Aerospace Agency (NASA) ended all publicly funded manned flight programs in 2011 and started to encourage private sector initiatives in this area.

In the same year, the US government decided to involve the business world in outer space studies, and NASA launched the "Commercial Crew Development Program".

Contracts were signed with SpaceX and Boeing after NASA decided to work with the private sector to end its reliance on another country and bring manned spaceflights back to the United States. NASA paid $3.1 billion to SpaceX for the development of "Crew Dragon" and $4.8 billion to Boeing for the "CST-100 Starliner".

On May 30, 2020, SpaceX successfully sent the spacecraft "Crew Dragon" from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA, with 2 astronauts into space. With this successful launch, SpaceX made the first manned flight into space, and for the first time in history, a private company sent people into space.

As a result of the successful historical manned launch and the journey to space with a reusable rocket, the way was cleared for NASA to get rid of the cost of approximately 85 million dollars per seat paid to Russia each time to send astronauts to the International Space Station in earth orbit.

NASA aims to send two astronauts to the Moon by 2024

NASA announced that it plans to send a male and a female astronaut to the lunar surface by 2024 as part of the exploration mission named after the Greek Moon goddess "Artemis".

NASA has completed testing the rocket engine it plans to use for lunar expeditions in March 2021.

NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket program manager, John Honeycutt, reported that the test of the rocket engine to be used for lunar expeditions was successfully completed at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, USA.

The SLS rocket is expected to be sent to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and later integrated into the Orion spacecraft.

After the expeditions, which are planned to last until 2028, it is aimed to establish a space station in lunar orbit and to organize manned expeditions to Mars by using this place as a stepping stone