Man has been conquering the forces of nature with his scientific knowledge and mental powers for ages. Space travel or journey to the moon is no more a dream. Man’s long cherished dream was to see how life grows in planets like moon, venous and Mars. Space travel became a reality when in 1957 the Russians sent artificial satellites into space. The satellite was fired into space by a rocket which provided the initial velocity of about 8,000 meters per second. The satellite was named sputnik and it traveled around the earth. Please note that there was no living being in this first space ship, whereas the second one carried a dog named Laika.
The third satellite was fired into space on May 15, 1959. It was bigger in size and weight, not to mention that it was faster, equipped with many features like solar batteries and radio transmitter. Russians can be accredited as the first ones to travel in space.
The Americans however did not lag much behind in this field. Their scientists, engineers and administrators worked day and night on designing, building and testing of space rockets and shuttles. It was David R. Scott, who became the first person who landed on the moon and stayed there for sixty seven hours. The date was 21st July, 1969, when he along with two other astronauts landed on the moon. The name of the space ship was Endeavour, which took twelve rounds in the orbit of moon before it entered into it. It took almost two hours to move around the orbit of the moon by means of Lunar module. In total they spent 87 hours in this adventure. During this journey they experienced that they are on a barren and wild land, and felt that they are the only living souls on the moon. Another interesting thing they experienced was weightlessness. The moon is surrounded by ridges and gorges all around. There was no wind and no air on it.
After these first attempts, there have been several others and more successful ones. Space travel has opened vast possibilities for the conquest of nature by man. It has shown us that man can know much more about the condition of other planets like venous and mars, space scientist are working on the possibility of living on other planets. Space travel has given birth to technologies like weather forecasts or various communication technologies.