Dawn of the Space Age: Past, present, and future of propulsion technology
- Rocket propulsion emerged as a science by the early 20th century.
- Americans and Soviets established competitive space programs after World War II.
- By the 1960s, both developed rocket engines that would send satellites and humans to space.
Spacecraft have come a long way since the dawn of the Space Age. In terms of communications, navigation, computation, and profiles, there have been changes that are nothing short of revolutionary.
Between the launch of Sputnik 1 and the closing of the Apollo Era, missions to space went from rockets and orbital capsules to three-stage rockets and spacecraft that sent astronauts to the Moon.
Experts say this year's monsoon rains in Pakistan were the worst ever, flooding one-third of the South Asian country, ruining crops on hundreds of thousands of acres, and uprooting at least 33 million people of its 220 million population.