Change in the Crew

For the last few months, there have been many messages in the media about the creation of new space agencies. In developed countries, such agencies have existed for years, so the developing countries became the heroes of the news. What is this – a simple coincidence or a new tendency?

The fact that a country has a space agency shows that it’s technological development has literally reached astronomic heights. Nevertheless, there doesn’t have to any direct relation between the age of the space agency and the degree of greatness of its achievements. For example, such agencies in Pakistan and Indonesia appeared not much later than the American, but of course it’s impossible to compare their results.

The pioneers of space discoveries were without doubt the (former?) 2 superpowers – USSR and USA. The space agency in the Soviet Union appeared in 1955, while the American emerged in 1958. The formal start of the space race is October 4 1957, when the first artificial Earth satellite, “Sputnik-1″, was successfully launched. The next 2 milestones in space exploration were also set by the USSR: April 12 1961 when Jurij Gagarin flew around the Earth in the spaceship “Vostok-1″; and March 18 1965 when Alexei Leonov went into open space. Only 4 years later the American side stroke back – July 21 1969 Neil Armstrong was standing on the surface of the moon.

After the American “settlement” on the moon, the space race withered away. Soon, the rivalry in space shifted to cooperation. The project “Soyuz”-”Apollo” (in the American version – “Apollo”-”Soyuz”) became the symbol for the cooperation and interaction between the USSR and USA, that was developed in 1975. In the project there was a joint flight of the Soviet spaceship “Soyuz-19″ and the American “Apollo”. Clear signs of a new era are orbital stations, such as “Mir” and the “International Space Station”, whose “crew” consisted, and still consists of citizens of different countries. Following the globalization and unity trends, the European Union created the uniform European Space Agency in 1975.

In the 1990’s, other countries became more and more “seen” in the space exploration. The most active player was China, with its crazily fast developing economy. Already in the 1950-1960’s China borrowed many technologies from the USSR, and started developing its own space industry. The official start of the Chinese space program was in 1968. But because of the absence of financial supply in the 1980’s, the program froze up, but after a couple of years, China returned to its ambitious space plans.