Buran Spacecraft
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On November 15, 1988, the Soviet space shuttle Buran took of for its one and only spaceflight. This remains the only Soviet space shuttle that was launched into space, as the Buran programme was cancelled in 1993.
On October 18, 1989, the unmanned NASA spacecraft Galileo was launched on her mission to study the planet Jupiter and its moons. Named after the astronomer Galileo Galilei, it consisted of an orbiter and entry probe, which descended into Jupiter's atmosphere.
On July 3, 1969, the biggest explosion in the history of rocketry occurred when the Soviet N-1 rocket exploded and subsequently destroyed its launchpad. After four unsuccessful launch tries of the Soviet counterpart to the NASA Saturn V rocket the Russian Moon program was cancelled in May 1974.
In early June 1978 - we have not been able to determine the exact date - the famous arcade video game Space Invaders designed by Tomohiro Nishikado was released by the Japanese Taito Corporation. Space Invaders is one of the earliest shooting games and the aim is to defeat waves of attacking aliens with a laser cannon to earn as many points as possible.
On 12 April 1961, aboard the Vostok 3KA-3 (Vostok 1), Soviet pilot Yuri Gagarin became both the first human to travel into space, and also the first to orbit the earth.
On April 11, 1970, at 13:13 CST Apollo 13 was launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, but the lunar landing was aborted after an oxygen tank exploded two days later, crippling the service module upon which the Command Module depended. Despite great hardship caused by limited power, loss of cabin heat, shortage of potable water, and the critical need to jury-rig the carbon dioxide removal system, the crew returned safely to Earth on April 17.
On December 11, 1972, 05:33:00 UTC, Apollo 17 with Commander Eugene A. Cernan, Command Module Pilot Ronald E. Evans, and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison H. Schmitt landed in the Taurus-Littrow valley on the lunar surface and were (so far) the last men to set foot on the Moon. Apollo 17 was the eleventh and final mission of the United States' Apollo program, the sixth mission to land humans on the Moon.
On October 21, 2003, a photograph of the nocturnal sky was taken and revealed a possible 10th planet in our solar system: Eris. Unfortunately scientists came then to the conclusion that Eris and also Pluto could no longer hold the status as planets and were called dwarf planets from this point.
The man who presumably started the Space Race was born on September 7 in 1914. He was best known for his Rockoon project, which proved the existence of the radiation belt sorrounding our planet.
On July 20, 1969 (for us western Europeans it was July 21, 3:56 MEZ) United States' space mission Apollo 11 reached the moon and the lunar module Eagle and the astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin.