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Hello!
Hello and welcome to my first timeline. This timeline takes place between the years 1869 and 1998. This timeline is going to be about space stations, from how they evolved to ideas of the different stations. You will get a short clip of info and a picture to go along with it. I hope you enjoy! -
A Futuristic Idea
A century before Apollo’s astronauts walked on the moon, science fiction told the public of a future of an outpost on the moon and orbiting high above the Earth. In the years that followed, these earliest space station ideas evolved into platforms that could launch manned missions to the Moon and Mars. -
The Brick Moon
Readers of Atlantic Monthly were introduced to the idea of living in space though Edwards Everett Hale’s science fiction story, “The Brick Moon.” This book tells the story of a 200-foot diameter brick sphere that is a navigational aid for ships. It orbits the earth to help ships realize were they are. -
They Gave it a Name
The term space station was coined almost fifty years later by Hermann Oberth. He had a vision of a platform that orbited the earth that would serve as a starting point for missions to the Moon and Mars. -
We Have a Rocket!
Military funding from the Reich brought rocketry to maturity. By the end of World War 2, the Von Braun’s team had a working rocket with V-2. The technology was picked up by both American and Soviet scientists. -
The Start of Great Things!
NASA was mainly focused on getting to the Moon, but space stations were not totally off the drawing board. Spurred by Apollo’s high funding level and the growing interest for spaceflight, an orbital outpost was again seriously considered in NASA’s main post-Apollo’s program. 4 years later it was officially on the books. -
Space Base
NASA proposed a 100-man space station called the Space Base. The idea was to build a platform that they would use as a laboratory for scientific experiments as well as home for nuclear-powered space tugs to get astronauts to and from an outpost on the Moon. Scheduled for assembly to be completed by 1975. -
Skylab
NASA had access to Apollo’s hardware from three cancelled lunar missions and wanted to turn into a short term space station program called Skylab. The station was made from an S-IVB upper stage and launched on the last Saturn V in May of 1973. -
The Dual Keel Space Station
Japan and Europe decided to contribute modules and Canada agreed to supply a manipulator arm. The station was coming out from these early design stages with a dual keel arrangement with a central truss to hold the main living and working areas as well as solar arrays. -
Freedom
NASA's original projection of $8 billion for three different parts, the main living space and the two laboratory platforms, proved ambitiously low. The solution was to replace the dual keel arrangements with a single truss design and to make the laboratory modules smaller. Reagan gave the station a name: Freedom. -
The ISS
Unity built components of the International Space Station (ISS) and launched the first Space Shuttle mission dedicated to the assembly of the station. The space station is around the size of a football field, is 460 tons, and has a permanently crewed platform orbiting 250 miles above the Earth. -
Bye!
That is all for my timeline! That went by really fast, but making it was not fast, so I hope you liked it! If you were paying attention at all you should have learned SOMETHING! Like some things about the Space Base or some fun facts about the ISS. I really hoped you liked my timeline! BYE! -
