Snipfact:

    Year: 2010 Event: Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavour are to be progressively taken out of service and replace by NASA’s Orion spacecraft in a programme that will take astronauts back to the Moon and to Mars.

    Year: 2009 Event: Virgin Galactic plans space tourism flights to over 100 km (62 miles) in SpaceShipOne, which carries six passengers at a cost of $200,000 per person.

    Date: 15-16 October 2003 Event: Chinese astronaut Lang Liwei made eight orbits of Earth in a Shenzhou 5 spacecraft. China made its second flight, Shenzhou 6, with two astronauts on 12-16 October 2005.

    Date: 28 April – 6 May 2001 Event: US millionaire Dennis Tito became the first space tourist, paying $20 million for his Russian Soyuz TM-32 flight to the International Space Station.

    Date: 2 November 2000 Event: An American and Russian crew began living abroad the International Space Station.

    Date: 4 December 1998 Event: First stage of the International Space Station was established.

  Date: 26 September 1996 Event: On her 5th mission, US astronaut Shannon Lucid completed 188 days abroad the Russian Mir station, setting a world record for women. Lucid was born in China. She flew more missions than any woman and at 53 was the oldest female in space.

    Date: 29 June 1995 Event: Space shuttle Atlantis STS-71 docked with the Soviet space station Mir.

      Date: 18 May1991 Event: Helen Sharman travelled to the Mir space station and spent a week in space.

    Date: 18 June 1983 Event: Sally Ride was launched in the space shuttle Challenger STS-7, which was the first reusable space vehicle.

  Date: 20 July 1969 Event: Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin became the first men on the Moon.

    Date: 24 December 1968 Event: Apollo 8 (followed in 1969 by Apollo missions 9 and 10) orbited the Moon but did not land.

    Date: 24 April 1967 Event: After 18 orbits in soyuz 1, Vladimir M.komarov (USSR) died when his parachute got tangled and his capsule crash-landed.

    Date: 3 June 1965 Event: Edward H. White II made a 36 minute spacewalk from Gemini 4.

    Date: 23 March 1965 Event: John Young and Virgil “Gus” Grissom made the first two-man US mission in Gemini 3.

    Date: 18 March 1965 Event: Aleskei Leonov (USSR) made the first space walk, from Voskhod 2. It took 24 minutes and it almost ended in disaster when his spacesuit ballooned. He was unable to return through the airlock until he reduced the pressure in his suit to a dangerously low level.

    Date: 16 June 1963 Event: Valentina V.Tereshkova (USSR) in Vostok 6 was the first woman in space. She spent 2 days 22 hours 50 minutes 8 seconds in space. She remains the youngest (26 years 3 months 10 days) woman in space.

    Date: 20 February 1962 Event: John H Glenn Jr in the Friendship 7 capsule made the first US orbit. completing three orbits in 4 hours 55 mins.

    Date: 6 August 1961 Event: Gherman S. Titov (USSR) in Vostok 2 made the first flight of more than 24 hours. He was also the youngest ever astronaut at 25 years 10 months 25 days.

    Date: 5 May 1961 Event: America’s first astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr, entered space aboard Mercury 3 but did not orbit during his 15 minute 22 second mission.