Space - world beyond the world

Stars and literally every celestial entity in nature have always fascinated man. As per the history notes, human being has been curious about surroundings from as early as 2300 to 2350 BC and it also has provoked man to explore a new and an inexperienced scenario called SPACE. Even after making tremendous progress (or moving fast on the path of progress) in virtually all the areas of science, progress in Space science and its exciting world has remained ways back in the race. During the initial time, only few people where interested in or thought about new ideas of exploring the space. Few genius people went ahead and wrote their ideas in the form of theories (Copernicus was one such genius), books of Space Science and on the other hand some discovered and developed new gadgets (such as Telescope) to aid those who all are interested in SPACE.

As conceptualization, evolution and research is a part of every new thing, every new idea, Space Science also witnessed various phases such as a phase of conceptualization of ideas, the next phase of which was the human endeavor to find out new and unknown objects (such as new stars, and planets) in the space with the help of Telescopes, radars and many more equipments. Space Science gained acceptance as a totally new and as a potential branch of Science, scientists and astronomers emerged from all over the world to discover the undiscovered, to find the answers to those questions, which always have puzzled human mind.

Great astronomers, astrophysicists and leaders of the Science World: Aristarchus (who was probably first to put forward his theory that the sun is the center of the universe), Claudius Ptolemy, Hipparchus, Omar Khayyam, Nicolaus Copernicus, Pythagoras, Johannes Kepler (discovered and researched on planetary laws which are known as ‘Kepler’s Planetary Laws’), Cassini, Sir Isaac Newton (who developed and put forward the theory of gravity), Joseph Fraunhofer, Annie Canon, Albert Einstein, Edwin Hubble, Stephen Hawking, emerged with their views and new theories regarding the unknown world around us. During past few centuries, from the day of birth of the very idea of SPACE, the progress in the field of Space Science was very slow but was constant. During this time the space science witnessed many new developments (right from the concepts of Universe to the inventions of various equipments which helped in proving those concepts to be true, discovery of new objects such as comets, new planets and starts etc. in the space) and new horizons were touched.

The significant steps towards the development, improving our knowledge of space were taken in the 20th century. Right after the invention of aircraft (by Wright Brothers in 1903), new hope of exploring the space and reaching the new planets took a shape in human mind. People started giving more emphasis towards Space Science and millions of dollars were poured in the research work and study of Space Science. Further after some progress in technologies, space science was looked upon as a new possibility towards the development of medical science, development and safe research on atomic/radioactive elements, exploring the space to find out the possible traces of life on other planets etc.

Like any other field, Space Science also couldn’t survive the competition. After the Second World War, it became one of the most important fields (as it is considered that the country that will lead the space race will rule the future world) in which every country (Specially Soviet Union and America) wished to prove their technical excellence over their competitors. The Cold War between countries worked as a fuel for the ongoing activities. Almost all the mighty nations plunged into the race of exploring space and lead the competition. By the time, Soviet Union was a leader in exploring the space and it had sent quite a few very successful missions (one of which is its very first satellite ‘SPUTNIK’, then the second satellite ‘SPUTNIK II’, with a dog) in the space, and it was even planning to send a man on the moon.

America being one of the strongest competitors of Soviet Union started pouring billions of dollars in space research. It even went ahead and formed the ‘National Aeronautics and Space Association’ (NASA) on 1st October 1958. America launched their first satellite ‘Explorer – I’ in the space and also announced a series of such missions. The competition between Soviet Union and America played an important role in bringing new pace to the Space Science and its development. Further, Soviet Union successfully landed their first space vehicle (Lung 2) on moon (unmanned) and proved its might (after which, Soviet Union sent series satellites on the moon mission) and even started taking steps towards the launch of first man on the moon.

Answer to Soviet Union’s series of satellites and its first woman in space was given by America, by its plans of sending the first man on the moon. America started with series of Apollo missions (Apollo 7, 8, 9, 10), which were specifically aimed towards America’s moon missions. Further, America landed its first man on the moon on July 16, 1969, when Apollo 11 successfully touched the surface of moon with Astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Edwin E Aldrin and Michael Collins. Even though the mission was meant to help America in leading the space race, it worked as a giant step for the mankind and opened a completely new chapter in the history of Space Science.