Museum

of
 The Museum of Skies wishes to connect with everyone that
wants to know more about what happens above us. It will
explain everything about it.The sky’s importance in everyday
life, what it represents to our planet, its history and many
other curiosities, all shown in the broadest way possible.
With interactive artifacts, experiments that relate to
everyday life, unveiled stories of the past, it is an educational
space, not only for our next generations, but also for those
that still want to learn. It is a place where we can learn our
history, our past and what we represent now, looking for
what happens and happened beyond our reach. And it also
is a venue where we can know what we are expecting and
researching for our future.
A museum that never ceases to gather content and expand,
always trying to be up to date about the new discoveries and
whatever is being uncovered in relation to the universe we
know so little about. Furthermore, we try to make science
and space exploration more appealing for young people, so
they can enter this brand-new research area, making more
and more people interested in exposing the mysteries and
hidden things of our universe.
Contents

Sky Aviation
p. 7 p. 17
Universe Space Exploration
p. 29 p. 61
1
Sky
The region of the
atmosphere and
outer space seen
from the earth.

7
 The Atmosphere
It is a layer of gases surrounding a planet
or other material body of sufficient
mass that is held in place by the gravity
of the body. The atmosphere of Earth
is the layer of gases, commonly known
as air, that surrounds the planet Earth
and is retained by Earth’s gravity. The
museum of skies | sky

atmosphere protects life on Earth by

absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation,
warming the surface through heat
retention — the greenhouse effect —
and reducing temperature extremes
between day and night — the diurnal
temperature variation.

By volume, dry air contains:

20.95% Oxygen

0.97% Other gases

(Argon,Carbon
dioxide, Neon,
Helium and
Methane)

78.08% Nitrogen

8
700 to 10,000 km
The upper limit of the atmosphere. The exosphere merges with the emptiness of outer
space, where there is no atmosphere. The exosphere is located too far above Earth for
any meteorological phenomena to be possible. However, the aurora borealis and aurora
australis sometimes occur in the lower part of the exosphere, where they overlap into
the thermosphere. The exosphere contains most of the satellites orbiting Earth.

The thermosphere is the second-highest layer of Earth’s atmosphere. Within this layer of
the atmosphere, ultraviolet radiation causes photoionization/photodissociation of molecules,
80 to 700 km

creating the ions in the ionosphere. This layer is completely cloudless and free of water
vapor. However non-hydrometeorological phenomena such as the aurora borealis
and aurora australis are occasionally seen in the thermosphere. The International Space
Station orbits in this layer, between 320 and 380 km.

The mesosphere is the third highest layer of Earth’s atmosphere. It is the coldest place
on Earth and has an average temperature around −85 °C. The exact upper and lower
50 t0 80 km

boundaries of the mesosphere vary with latitude and with season. The mesosphere is also
the layer where most meteors burn up upon atmospheric entrance. It is too high above
Earth to be accessible to aircraft and balloons, and too low to permit orbital spacecraft.
The mesosphere is mainly accessed by sounding rockets.

The stratosphere is the second major layer of Earth’s atmosphere. It is stratified in

temperature, with warmer layers higher up and cooler layers farther down. This is in contrast
12 to 50 km

to the troposphere near the Earth’s surface, which is cooler higher up and warmer farther
down. The border of the troposphere and stratosphere, the tropopause, is marked by where
this inversion begins, which in terms of atmospheric thermodynamics is the equilibrium level.
It contains the ozone layer and is almost completely free of clouds and other forms of
weather. This is the highest layer that can be accessed by jet-powered aircraft.

The troposphere is the lowest layer of Earth’s atmosphere. Nearly all atmospheric water vapor
or moisture is found in the troposphere, so it is the layer where most of Earth’s weather takes
0 to 12 km

place. It has basically all the weather-associated cloud genus types generated by active wind
circulation, although very tall cumulonimbus thunder clouds can penetrate the tropopause from
below and rise into the lower part of the stratosphere. Most conventional aviation activity takes
place in the troposphere, and it is the only layer that can be accessed by propeller-driven aircraft.

9
 Ionosphere
The ionosphere is a region of the
atmosphere that is ionised by solar
radiation. During daytime hours, it
stretches from 50 to 1,000 km and
includes the mesosphere, thermosphere,
and parts of the exosphere. However,
ionisation in the mesosphere largely
ceases during the night, so auroras
are normally seen only in the
thermosphere and lower exosphere.
The ionosphere forms the inner edge
of the magnetosphere. It has practical
importance because it influences, for
example, radio propagation on Earth.

GREENHOUSE EFFECT

The greenhouse effect is the process by

which radiation from a planet's atmosphere
warms the planet's surface to a temperature
above what it would be without its atmos-
phere. Earth’s natural greenhouse effect is
critical to supporting life. Human activities,
primarily the burning of fossil fuels and clear-
ing of forests, have intensified the natural
greenhouse effect, causing global warming.
In the Solar System, there also greenhouse
effects on Mars, Venus, and Titan.
The Clouds
A cloud is an aerosol comprising a
visible mass of liquid droplets or frozen
crystals made of water or various
chemicals. The droplets or particles
are suspended in the atmosphere
above the surface of a planetary body.
On Earth clouds are formed by the
saturation of air in the homosphere
when air cools or gains water vapor.
Cloud types in the troposphere have
Latin names due to the universal
adaptation of Luke Howard’s
nomenclature. It was formally proposed
in December 1802 and published
for the first time the following year.
It became the basis of a modern
international system that classifies these
tropospheric aerosols into several
physical forms which can be found
at various altitude levels or étages.
The ones that form above the
troposphere have common names for
their main types, but are sub-classified
museum of skies | sky
alpha-numerically rather than with the
elaborate system of Latin names given
to cloud types in the troposphere.
Clouds have been observed on other
planets and moons within the Solar
System, but, due to their different
temperature characteristics, they are
often composed of other substances
such as methane, ammonia, and sulfuric
acid as well as water.
11
 Types of Clouds
High Clouds
museum of skies | sky
Cirrus
Detached clouds in the form
of white, delicate filaments,
mostly white patches or
narrow bands. They may have
a fibrous (hair-like) and/or silky
sheen appearance.
Cirrus clouds are always
composed of ice crystals, and
their transparent character
depends upon the degree of
separation of the crystals.
As a rule when these clouds
cross the sun’s disk they hardly
diminish its brightness. Before
sunrise and after sunset, cirrus
is often colored bright yellow
or red. These clouds are lit up
long before other clouds and
fade out much later.
12
Cirrostratus
Transparent, whitish veil clouds
with a fibrous (hair-like) or
smooth appearance. A sheet
of cirrostratus which is very
extensive, nearly always ends
by covering the whole sky.
A milky veil of fog (or thin
Stratus) is distinguished from
a veil of Cirrostratus of a
similar appearance by the
halo phenomena which the
sun or the moon nearly
always produces in a layer
of cirrostratus.
Cirrocumulus
Thin, white patch, sheet, or
layered of clouds without
shading. They are composed
of very small elements in the
form of more or less regularly
arranged grains or ripples.
In general Cirrocumulus
represents a degraded state
of cirrus and cirrostratus both
of which may change into it
and is an uncommon cloud.
There will be a connection
with cirrus or cirrostratus and
will show some characteristics
of ice crystal clouds.
Mid Clouds
Altostratus
Gray or bluish cloud sheets or
layers of striated or fibrous clouds
that totally or partially covers
the sky.They are thin enough to
regularly reveal the sun as if seen
through ground glass.
Altostratus clouds do not
produce a halo phenomenon
nor are the shadows of objects
on the ground visible.
Sometime virga is seen
hanging from Altostratus, and
at times may even reach the
ground causing very light
precipitation.
Altocumulus
White and/or gray patch, sheet
or layered clouds, generally
composed of laminae (plates),
rounded masses or rolls. They
may be partly fibrous or diffuse.
When the edge or a thin
semitransparent patch of
altocumulus passes in front
of the sun or moon a corona
appears. This colored ring has
red on the outside and blue
inside and occurs within a few
degrees of the sun or moon.
The most common mid
cloud, more than one layer
of Altocumulus often appears at
different levels at the same time.
Many times Altocumulus will
appear with other cloud types.
museum of skies | sky
Nimbostratus
The continuous rain cloud.
Resulting from thickening
Altostratus, This is a dark gray
cloud layer diffused by falling
rain or snow. It is thick enough
throughout to blot out the
sun. The cloud base lowers
into the low level of clouds as
precipitation continues.
Also, low, ragged clouds
frequently occur beneath this
cloud which sometimes merges
with its base.
13
 Low Clouds
museum of skies | sky
Cumulus
Detached, generally dense clouds
and with sharp outlines that
develop vertically in the form of
rising mounds, domes or towers
with bulging upper parts often
resembling a cauliflower.
The sunlit parts of these
clouds are mostly brilliant white
while their bases are relatively
dark and horizontal.
Over land cumulus develops
on days of clear skies, and
is due diurnal convection; it
appears in the morning, grows,
and then more or less dissolves
again toward evening.
14
Stratus
A generally gray cloud layer
with a uniform base which may,
if thick enough, produce drizzle,
ice prisms, or snow grains.
When the sun is visible
through this cloud, its outline
is clearly discernible.
Often when a layer
of stratus breaks up and
dissipates blue sky is seen.
Cumulonimbus
The thunderstorm cloud, this
is a heavy and dense cloud
in the form of a mountain or
huge tower. The upper portion
is usually smoothed, fibrous
or striated and nearly always
flattened in the shape of an
anvil or vast plume.
Under the base of this cloud
which is often very dark, there
are often low ragged clouds
that may or may not merge
with the base. They produce
precipitation, which sometimes
is in the form of virga.
Cumulonimbus clouds also
produce hail and tornadoes.
 OTHER TYPES OF CLOUD
Fog

A fog is a cloud on the ground. It is com-

posed of billions of tiny water droplets float-
ing in the air. Fog exists if the atmospheric
visibility near the Earth’s surface is reduced
to 1 kilometer or less.

Stratocumulus Contrails
Gray or whitish patch, sheet,
or layered clouds which almost
always have dark tessellations
(honeycomb appearance),
rounded masses or rolls. Except
for virga they are non-fibrous
and may or may not be merged.
They also have regularly
arranged small elements with
an apparent width of more
than five degrees (three
fingers - at arm’s length).
Contrails are condensation trails left be-
hind jet aircrafts. Contrails form when hot
humid air from jet exhaust mixes with en-
vironmental air of low vapor pressure and
low temperature. The mixing is a result of
turbulence generated by the engine exhaust.
2
Aviation
The practical aspect
or art of aeronautics,
being the design,
development,
production, operation
and use of aircraft,
especially heavier
than air aircraft.

17
 A brief History
of Aviation
The history of aviation has extended
over more than two thousand years,
museum of skies | aviation
from the earliest forms of aviation,
kites and attempts at tower jumping, to
supersonic, and hypersonic flight
by powered, heavier-than-air jets.
From the earliest legends there have
been stories of men strapping birdlike
wings, stiffened cloaks or other devices
to themselves and attempting to fly,
typically by jumping off a tower. The
Greek legend of Daedalus and Icarus
is one of the earliest known, others
originated from India, China and the
European Dark Ages. During this early
period the issues of lift, stability and
control were not understood, and
most attempts ended in serious injury
or death. The kite may have been
the first form of man-made aircraft.
At the Renaissance, eventually, some
investigators began to discover and
define some of the basics of rational
18
aircraft design. Most notable of these
was Leonardo da Vinci, although his
work remained unknown until 1797, and
so had no influence on developments
over the next three hundred years.
Leonardo studied bird flight, analysing
it and anticipating many principles
of aerodynamics. He did at least
understand that "An object offers
as much resistance to the air as
the air does to the object.
1783 was a watershed year for
ballooning and aviation. Ballooning
became a major "rage" in Europe in the
late 18th century, providing the first
detailed understanding of the relationship
between altitude and the atmosphere.
Work on developing a steerable (or
dirigible) balloon - now called an airship
- continued sporadically throughout the
19th century. Airships were originally
called "dirigible balloons" and are still
sometimes called dirigibles today.

Leonardo da Vinci, was born on April 15,
1452, Anchiano, near Vinci, Republic of Flor-
ence (Italy and died on May 2, 1519, Cloux
(now Clos-Lucé), France. He was an Italian
painterx, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and
engineer whose genius, perhaps more than
that of any other figure, epitomized the Re-
naissance humanist ideal. His Last Supper
LEONARDO DA VINCI
(1495–98) and Mona Lisa (c. 1503–06) are
among the most widely popular and influen-
tial paintings of the Renaissance. His note-
books reveal a spirit of scientific inquiry and
a mechanical inventiveness that were centu-
ries ahead of their time.
The unique fame that Leonardo enjoyed
PROFILE
in his lifetime and that, filtered by histor-
ical criticism, has remained undimmed to
the present day rests largely on his unlim-
ited desire for knowledge, which guided
Da Vinci Bio
all his thinking and behaviour. An artist by
disposition and endowment, he considered
his eyes to be his main avenue to knowl-
edge; to Leonardo, sight was man’s highest
sense because it alone conveyed the facts
of experience immediately, correctly, and
with certainty.
Hence, every phenomenon perceived
became an object of knowledge, and saper
vedere (“knowing how to see”) became
the great theme of his studies. He applied
his creativity to every realm in which graph-
ic representation is used: he was a painter,
sculptor, architect, and engineer. But he
went even beyond that. He used his superb
intellect, unusual powers of observation, and
mastery of the art of drawing to study na-
ture itself, a line of inquiry that allowed his
dual pursuits of art and science to flourish.
 Balloons
A balloon is a flexible bag that can
be inflated with a gas, such as helium,
hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen,
or air. Modern day balloons are made
from materials such as rubber, latex,
polychloroprene, or a nylon fabric, and
can come in many colors. In aeronautics,
a balloon is an unpowered aerostat,
museum of skies | aviation
which remains aloft or floats due to its
buoyancy. A balloon may be free, moving
with the wind, or tethered to a fixed
point. A balloon is conceptually
the simplest of all flying machines.
20
How it works?
The balloon is a fabric envelope
filled with a gas that is lighter than
the surrounding atmosphere. As the
entire balloon is less dense than its
surroundings, it rises, taking along with
it a basket, attached underneath, which
carries passengers or payload. Although
a balloon has no propulsion system, a
degree of directional control is possible
through making the balloon rise or sink in
altitude to find favorable wind directions.
The Union Army Balloon Intrepid
being inflated from the gas generators
for the Battle of Fair Oaks
(Mathew Brady, circa 1862)
Dirigibles
A dirigible is a type of aerostat or How it works?
lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate Aerostats gain their lift from large gas
through the air under its own power. bags filled with a lifting gas that is less
Airships were the first aircraft capable dense than the surrounding air.
of controlled powered flight, and were
most commonly used before the 1940s,
but their use decreased over time as their
capabilities were surpassed by those of

museum of skies |aviation

aeroplanes.

Packard and the Graf Zeppelin

(circa 1929)

21
 The most successful early pioneering
pilot of this type of aircraft was the
Brazilian Alberto Santos-Dumont who
effectively combined a balloon with
an internal combustion engine. On
October 19, 1901 he flew his airship
"Number 6" over Paris from the Parc de
Saint Cloud around the Eiffel Tower and
back in under 30 minutes to win the
Deutsch de la Meurthe prize. Santos-
museum of skies | aviation

Dumont went on to design and build

several aircraft.

Using a methodological approach and

concentrating on the controllability
of the aircraft, the brothers built and
tested a series of kite and glider designs
from 1900 to 1902 before attempting
to build a powered design. They made
the first sustained, controlled, powered
heavier-than-air manned flight on
December 17, 1903.

22
Santos Dumont Bio
Alberto Santos-Dumont was born July 20,
1873, Cabangu, in Minas Gerais, Brazil and died
on July 23, 1932, in São Paulo. He was a Bra-
zilian aviation pioneer who captured the imag-
ination of Europe and the United States with
ALBERTO SANTOS-DUMONT
his airship flights and made the first significant
flight of a powered airplane in Europe with his
No. 14-bis.
Santos-Dumont, the son of a wealthy coffee
planter, traveled to France to study engineer-
ing, and he soon became fascinated by flight.
His first balloon design was the Brazil, which
he flew in 1898. However, he quickly turned
his attention to powered airships. A total of
11 dirigibles emerged from Santos-Dumont’s
workshop over the next decade.
PROFILE
Santos-Dumont achieved one of the high-
points of his career on the afternoon of Oct. 19,
1901, when he won the 100,000-franc Deutsch
Prize for an 11.3-km flight with his airship No. 6
from the Paris suburb of St. Cloud to the Eiffel
Tower and back in less than half an hour. The
victorious aeronaut cemented his position as
one of the leading celebrities of the city when
he presented one-quarter of the purse to his
crew and the rest to the poor people of Paris.
Inspired by stories of what the Wright broth-
ers had accomplished in the United States,
Santos-Dumont designed and flew a series of
heavier-than-air flying machines.
His major accomplishments include making
the first public flight in Europe with a pow-
ered, winged aircraft on Sept. 13, 1906. San-
tos-Dumont remained active in aeronautical
circles prior to World War I, developing the
Demoiselle, a high-wing monoplane, in 1909.
He returned to Brazil a national hero in 1928.
He took his own life four years later, apparent-
ly depressed by the outbreak of a local war in
which the airplane was employed as a weapon.
 Airplanes
is a powered, fixed-wing aircraft that is
propelled forward by thrust from a jet
engine or propeller. The broad spectrum
of uses for airplanes includes recreation,
transportation of goods and people,
military, and research. Commercial
aviation is a massive industry involving the
flying of tens of thousands of passengers
museum of skies | aviation

daily on airliners. Most airplanes are

flown by a pilot on board the aircraft, but
some are designed to be remotely or
computer-controlled.

The 14-bis (side view)

24
The Pioneer Era of Aviation
It refers to the period of aviation history
between the first successful powered
flight made by the Wright Brothers on 17
December 1903 and the outbreak of the
First World War in August 1914.
After their flights in 1905 the Wrights
stopped work on developing their
aircraft and concentrated on trying
to commercially exploit their invention,
attempting to interest the military
authorities of the United States
and then, after being rebuffed, France
and Great Britain.
1909 can be regarded as the year in
which aviation came of age. At the end
of 1908 the first exhibition devoted to
aircraft was held in the Grand Palais in
Paris, and this was followed by the first
London Aero Exhibition at Olympia in
May 1909. The Aéro-Club de France
issued its first pilot's licenses in January,
awarding them to a select few pioneer
aviators including the Wright Brothers.
Almost as soon as they were invented,
airplanes were used for military purposes.
The first country to use them for military
purposes was Italy, whose aircraft made
reconnaissance, bombing and artillery
correction flights. The years between
World War I and World War II saw great
museum of skies |aviation
advancements in aircraft technology.
Airplanes evolved from low-powered
biplanes made from wood and fabric to
sleek, high-powered monoplanes made
of aluminum. In the 1930s development
of the jet engine began in Germany and
in Britain — both countries would go
on to develop jet aircraft by the end
of World War II. After World War II,
commercial aviation grew rapidly, using
mostly ex-military aircraft to transport
people and cargo.
25
 The 1945 invention of nuclear
bombs briefly increased the strategic
importance of military aircraft in the
Cold War between East and West.
Even a moderate fleet of long-range
bombers could deliver a deadly blow to
the enemy, so great efforts were made
to develop countermeasures. At first,
the supersonic interceptor aircraft were
produced in considerable numbers. By
museum of skies | aviation

1955 most development efforts shifted

to guided surface-to-air missiles.

However, the approach diametrically

changed when a new type of nuclear-
carrying platform appeared that could
not be stopped in any feasible way:
intercontinental ballistic missiles. The
possibility of these was demonstrated
in 1957 with the launch of Sputnik 1 by
the Soviet Union. This action started the
Space Race between the nations.

26
 The Wright brothers, Orville (1871 – 1948)
and Wilbur (1867 – 1912) are credited with
building and flying the first heavier than air
aeroplane. They achieved the first recorded
flight on 17 December 1903. Over the next
10 years they continued to develop the air-
craft making a significant contribution to the
development of the modern aeroplane. Their
particular contribution was in the effective
control of an airplane, through their three-ax-
is control system. This basic principle is still
used today. On December 17, 1903, the
WRIGHT BROTHERS
Wright Brothers made the first historic air-
plane flight, where Orville piloted the plane
with Wilbur running at the wing tip.
The first flight, by Orville, of 37 m in 12
seconds, at a speed of only 10.9 km/h over
the ground, was recorded in a famous photo-
graph. The next two flights covered approx-
PROFILE
imately 53 m and 61 m, by Wilbur and Or-
ville respectively. Their altitude was about 3
m above the ground. Five people witnessed
the first flight, including John Daniels who
took the famous first flight photo.Over the
next few years, they continued to develop
their aircraft.
However, they were conscious of needing
to gain successful patents to make their air-
craft commercially viable. They became re-
luctant to reveal too much about their flights
and disliked reporters taking photos of their
designs. Their secret approach and compet-
ing claims by other aircraft designers meant
that for many years their inventions and
flights were met with either indifference or
scepticism. However, in 1908, Wilbur began
public demonstrations in Le Mans, France.
His ability to effortlessly make turns and ma-
noeuvre the aircraft caused a sea change in
public opinion, and the display of technically
challenging flights caused widespread public
acclaim and enthusiasm.
In 1909, Wilbur made a public flight up
the Hudson river in New York, circling the
Statue of Liberty. This 33 minute flight es-
tablished their fame in America.
3
Universe
All of time and space
and its contents.
It includes planets, stars,
galaxies, the contents
of intergalactic space,
the smallest subatomic
particles, and all matter
and energy.

29
 A brief History
of the Universe
The Universe can be defined as
everything that exists, everything that
museum of skies | universe
has existed, and everything that will exist.
According to our current understanding,
the Universe consists of spacetime, forms
of energy (including electromagnetic
radiation and matter), and the physical
laws that relate them. The Universe
encompasses all of life, all of history, and
some philosophers and scientists even
suggest that it encompasses ideas such
as mathematics and logic.
Throughout recorded history,
cosmologies and cosmogonies,
including scientific models, have been
proposed to explain observations of
the Universe. The earliest quantitative
geocentric models were developed by
ancient Greek philosophers and Indian
philosophers. Over the centuries, more
30
precise astronomical observations led
to Nicolaus Copernicus’s heliocentric
model of the Solar System. Further
observational improvements led to
the realization that the Solar System
is located in a galaxy composed of
billions of stars, the Milky Way. It was
subsequently discovered that our galaxy
is just one of many.
On the largest scales, it is assumed that
the distribution of galaxies is uniform
and the same in all directions, meaning
that the Universe has neither an edge
nor a center. Observations of the
distribution of these galaxies and their
spectral lines have led to many of the
theories of modern physical cosmology.
The discovery in the early 20th
century that galaxies are systematically
redshifted suggested that the Universe
is expanding, and the discovery of
the cosmic microwave background
radiation suggested that the Universe
had a beginning Finally, observations in
the late 1990s indicated the rate of the
expansion of the Universe is increasing,
indicating that the majority of energy is
most likely in an unknown form called
dark energy. The majority of mass
in the universe also appears to exist in
an unknown form, called dark matter.
The Big Bang theory is the prevailing
cosmological model describing the
development of the Universe. Space and
time were created in the Big Bang, and
these were imbued with a fixed amount
of energy and matter; as space expands,
the density of that matter and energy
decreases. After the initial expansion, the
Universe cooled sufficiently to allow the
formation first of subatomic particles and
later of simple atoms. Giant clouds of
museum of skies | universe
these primordial elements later coalesced
through gravity to form stars. Assuming
that the prevailing model is correct, the
age of the Universe is measured to be
13.799±0.021 billion years.
There are many competing hypotheses
about the ultimate fate of the Universe.
Physicists and philosophers remain
unsure about what, if anything, preceded
the Big Bang. Many refuse to speculate,
doubting that any information from any
such prior state could ever be accessible.
There are various multiverse hypotheses,
in which some physicists have suggested
that the Universe might be one among
many universes that likewise exist.
31
 The Big Bang Theory
The Big Bang theory is the prevailing
cosmological model for the universe
from the earliest known periods through
its subsequent large-scale evolution.
The model accounts for the fact that
the universe expanded from a very high
density and high temperature state, and
offers a comprehensive explanation for
museum of skies | universe
a broad range of phenomena, including
the abundance of light elements, the
cosmic microwave background.
If the known laws of physics are
extrapolated beyond where they have
been verified, there is a singularity.
Some estimates place this moment
at approximately 13.8 billion years ago,
which is thus considered the age of
the universe. After the initial expansion,
the universe cooled sufficiently to allow
the formation of subatomic particles,
and later simple atoms. Giant clouds
of these primordial elements later
coalesced through gravity to form
stars and galaxies.
Since Georges Lemaître first noted, in
1927, that an expanding universe might
be traced back in time to an originating
single point, scientists have built on
32
his idea of cosmic expansion. While
the scientific community was once
divided between supporters of two
different expanding universe theories,
the Big Bang and the Steady State
theory, accumulated empirical evidence
provides strong support for the former.
In 1929, from analysis of galactic
redshifts, Edwin Hubble concluded
that galaxies are drifting apart; this
is important observational evidence
consistent with the hypothesis of an
expanding universe. In 1965, the cosmic
microwave background radiation was
discovered, which was crucial evidence
in favor of the Big Bang model, since
that theory predicted the existence of
background radiation throughout the
universe before it was discovered.
More recently, measurements of the
redshifts of supernovae indicate that the
expansion of the universe is accelerating,
an observation attributed to dark
energy’s existence.The known physical
laws of nature can be used to calculate
the characteristics of the universe in
detail back in time to an initial state of
extreme density and temperature.
While the Big Bang model is well
established in cosmology, it is likely
to be refined. The Big Bang theory,
built upon the equations of classical
general relativity, indicates a singularity
at the origin of cosmic time; this infinite
energy density is regarded as impossible
in physics. Still, it is known that the

museum of skies | universe

equations are not applicable before
the time when the universe cooled
down to the Planck temperature, and
this conclusion depends on various
assumptions, of which some could never
be experimentally verified.

One proposed refinement to avoid this

would-be singularity is to develop
a correct treatment of quantum gravity.
It is not known what could have
preceded the hot dense state of the
early universe or how and why it
originated, though speculation abounds
in the field of cosmogony.

33
 The Solar System
It is the gravitationally bound system
comprising the Sun and the objects that
orbit it, either directly or indirectly. Of
those objects that orbit the Sun directly,
the largest eight are the planets, with
the remainder being significantly smaller
museum of skies | universe
objects, such as dwarf planets and small
Solar System bodies.
The Solar System formed 4.6 billion years
ago from the gravitational collapse of a
giant interstellar molecular cloud. The
vast majority of the system’s mass is in
the Sun, with most of the remaining mass
contained in Jupiter. The four smaller inner
planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars,
are terrestrial planets, being primarily
composed of rock and metal.
The four outer planets are giant planets,
being substantially more massive
than the terrestrials. The two largest,
34
Jupiter and Saturn, are gas giants, being
composed mainly of hydrogen and
helium; the two outermost planets,
Uranus and Neptune, are ice giants,
being composed mostly of substances
with relatively high melting points
compared with hydrogen and helium,
called ices, such as water, ammonia and
methane. All planets have almost circular
orbits that lie within a nearly flat disc
called the ecliptic.
It also contains smaller objects.The
asteroid belt, which lies between the
orbits of Mars and Jupiter, mostly contains
objects composed, like the terrestrial
planets, of rock and metal. Beyond
Neptune’s orbit lie the Kuiper belt and
scattered disc, which are populations
of trans-Neptunian objects composed
mostly of ices, and beyond them a newly
discovered population of sednoids.
Within these populations are several
dozen to possibly tens of thousands
of objects large enough that they have
been rounded by their own gravity. Such
objects are categorized as dwarf planets.
Identified dwarf planets include the

museum of skies | universe

asteroid Ceres and the trans-Neptunian
objects Pluto and Eris. In addition to
these two regions, various other small-
body populations, including comets,
centaurs and interplanetary dust, freely
travel between regions. Six of the planets,
at least three of the dwarf planets, and
many of the smaller bodies are orbited
by natural satellites, usually termed
“moons” after the Moon. Each of the
outer planets is encircled by planetary
rings of dust and other small objects.

35
Sun
The Sun is the Solar System's star and
by far its most massive component. Its
large mass produces temperatures and
densities in its core high enough to
sustain nuclear fusion of hydrogen into
helium, making it a main-sequence star.
This releases an enormous amount of
energy, mostly radiated into space as
electromagnetic radiation peaking in
visible light.

Stars brighter and hotter than the

Sun are rare, whereas substantially
dimmer and cooler stars, known as
red dwarfs, make up 85% of the stars
in the Milky Way.

The Sun has a higher abundance of

elements heavier than hydrogen and
helium. Elements heavier than hydrogen
and helium were formed in the cores of
ancient and exploding stars, so the first
generation of stars had to die before the
Universe could be enriched with these
atoms. The oldest stars contain few
metals, whereas stars born later have
more. This high metallicity is thought
to have been crucial to the Sun's
development of a planetary system.
Mercury
Mercury is the smallest planet in the
Solar System and the one closest to
the Sun, with an orbital period of about
88 Earth days, which is much faster
than any other planet in the Solar
System. Seen from Earth, it appears to
move around its orbit in about 116
days. Partly because it has almost no
atmosphere to retain heat, Mercury’s
surface temperature varies diurnally
more than any other planet in the
Solar System, ranging from −173 °C
at night to 427 °C during the day in
some equatorial regions. Mercury’s axis
has the smallest tilt of any of the Solar
System’s planets. Its surface is heavily
cratered and similar in appearance to
the Moon, indicating that it has been
geologically inactive for billions of years.
It rotates in a way that is unique in the
Solar System. As seen relative to the
fixed stars, it rotates on its axis exactly
three times for every two revolutions
it makes around the Sun. As seen
from the Sun, in a frame of reference
that rotates with the orbital motion,
it appears to rotate only once every
two Mercurian years. An observer on
Mercury would therefore see only one
day every two years.
Because Mercury orbits the Sun within
Earth’s orbit, it can appear in Earth’s
sky in the morning or the evening, but
not in the middle of the night. Also,
like Venus and the Moon, it displays a
complete range of phases as it moves
around its orbit relative to Earth.
Although Mercury can appear as a
bright object when viewed from Earth,
its proximity to the Sun makes it more
difficult to see than Venus.
Venus
It is the second planet from the Sun,
orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. It
has the longest rotation period (245
days) of any planet in the Solar System
and rotates in the opposite direction
to most other planets. It has no natural
satellite. It is named after the Roman
goddess of love and beauty. It is the
second-brightest natural object in the
night sky after the Moon, bright enough
to cast shadows. Because Venus is an
inferior planet from Earth, it never
appears to venture far from the Sun.
Venus is a terrestrial planet and is
sometimes called Earth’s “sister
planet” because of their similar size,
mass, proximity to the Sun, and bulk
composition. It is radically different
from Earth in other respects. It has
the densest atmosphere of the four
terrestrial planets, consisting of
more than 96% carbon dioxide. The
atmospheric pressure at the planet’s
surface is 92 times that of Earth.
Venus is by far the hottest planet in
the Solar System, with a mean surface
temperature of 462 °C, even though
Mercury is closer to the Sun.
It may have had water oceans in the
past, but these would have vaporised
as the temperature rose due to
a runaway greenhouse effect. The
water has probably photodissociated,
and the free hydrogen has been
swept into interplanetary space
by the solar wind because of the
lack of a planetary magnetic field.
Venus’s surface is a dry desertscape
interspersed with slab-like rocks and
periodically resurfaced by volcanism.
As one of the brightest objects in the
sky,Venus has been a major fixture in
human culture for as long as records
have existed. It has been made sacred
to gods of many cultures, and has
been a prime inspiration for writers
and poets as the “morning star” and
“evening star”.Venus was the first
planet to have its motions plotted
across the sky, as early as the second
millennium BC, and was a prime target
for early interplanetary exploration as
the closest planet to Earth.
Earth and Moon
Earth is the third planet from the Sun,
the densest planet in the Solar System,
the largest of the Solar System’s
four terrestrial planets, and the only
astronomical object known to harbor
life. Earth gravitationally interacts with
other objects in space, especially the
Sun and the Moon.
Earth’s lithosphere is divided into
several rigid tectonic plates that
migrate across the surface over
periods of many millions of years.
71% of Earth’s surface is covered with
water, with the remainder consisting
of continents and islands that together
have many lakes and other sources
of water that contribute to the
hydrosphere. Its interior remains active
with a solid iron inner core, a liquid
outer core that generates the magnetic
field, and a convecting mantle that
drives plate tectonics.
Within its first billion years, life
appeared in Earth’s oceans and began
to affect its atmosphere and surface,
leading to the proliferation of aerobic
and anaerobic organisms. Since then,
the combination of Earth’s distance
from the Sun, its physical properties
and its geological history have allowed
life to thrive and evolve.
The Moon is Earth’s only permanent
natural satellite. Its gravitational
interaction with Earth causes ocean
tides, stabilises the orientation of
Earth’s rotational axis, and gradually
slows Earth’s rotational rate.
The tides on Earth are mostly
generated by the gradient in intensity
of the Moon’s gravitational pull from
one side of Earth to the other, the tidal
forces. This forms two tidal bulges on
Earth, which are most clearly seen in
elevated sea level as ocean tides. Unlike
most satellites of other planets, the
Moon orbits closer to the ecliptic plane
than to the planet’s equatorial plane.
The Moon’s regular phases make it a
very convenient timepiece, and the
periods of its waxing and waning form
the basis of many of the oldest calendars.
It is of major importance to many
ancient cultures when measuring time.
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the
Sun and the second-smallest planet
in the Solar System, after Mercury.
Named after the Roman god of war,
it is often referred to as the “Red
Planet”because its reddish appearance.
Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin
atmosphere, having surface features
reminiscent both of the impact craters
of the Moon and the valleys, deserts,
and polar ice caps of Earth.
Mars is host to seven functioning
spacecraft: five in orbit and two on
the surface. Observations by the Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter have revealed
possible flowing water during the
warmest months on Mars. There are
ongoing investigations assessing the
past habitability potential of Mars,
as well as the possibility of extant life.

The rotational period and seasonal

cycles of Mars are likewise similar
to those of Earth, as is the tilt that
produces the seasons. its orbital
period is 687 Earth days. The solar
day on Mars is only slightly longer than
an Earth day: 24 hours, 39 minutes, and
35.244 seconds. A Martian year is equal
to 1 year, 320 days and 18.2 hours.
Martian surface temperatures vary
from lows of about −143 °C at the
winter polar caps to highs of up to
35 °C in equatorial summer.
Asteroid belt
The asteroid belt is the circumstellar
disc in the Solar System located
roughly between the orbits of the
planets Mars and Jupiter. It is occupied
by numerous irregularly shaped bodies
called asteroids or minor planets. The
asteroid belt is also termed the main
asteroid belt or main belt to distinguish
it from other asteroid populations in
the Solar System such as near-Earth
asteroids and trojan asteroids.
Most belt asteroids imaged to
date have come from brief flyby
opportunities by probes headed for
other targets. Only the Dawn, NEAR
and Hayabusa missions have studied
asteroids for a protracted period
in orbit and at the surface. Dawn
explored Vesta from July 2011 to
September 2012, and has been orbiting
Ceres since March 2015.

About half the mass of the belt is

contained in the four largest asteroids:
Ceres,Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea. Ceres
is the asteroid belt’s only dwarf planet.
Contrary to popular imagery, the
asteroid belt is mostly empty. The
asteroids are spread over such a large
volume that it would be improbable
to reach an asteroid without aiming
carefully. Nonetheless, hundreds of
thousands of asteroids are currently
known, and the total number ranges in
the millions or more, depending on the
lower size cutoff.
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun Surrounding Jupiter is a faint
and the largest in the Solar System. planetary ring system and a powerful
It is a giant planet with a mass one- magnetosphere. Jupiter has at least 67
thousandth that of the Sun, but two moons, including the four large Galilean
and a half times that of all the other moons discovered by Galileo Galilei in
planets in the Solar System combined. 1610. Ganymede, the largest of these,
Jupiter is a gas giant, along with Saturn. has a diameter greater than that of the
Jupiter was known to astronomers of planet Mercury.
ancient times. The Romans named it
after their god Jupiter. It completes an
orbit every 11.86 years. When viewed
from Earth, Jupiter is bright enough for
its reflected light to cast shadows and
makes it the third-brightest object in
the night sky after the Moon and Venus.

Jupiter is primarily composed of

hydrogen with a quarter of its mass
being helium, though helium comprises
only about a tenth of the number of
molecules. It may also have a rocky
core of heavier elements, but like the
other giant planets, Jupiter lacks a well-
defined solid surface.
Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun
and the second-largest in the Solar
System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant
with an average radius about nine times
that of Earth. Saturn is named after the
Roman god of agriculture.
Saturn has a prominent ring system
that consists of nine continuous main
rings and three discontinuous arcs and
that is composed mostly of ice particles
with a smaller amount of rocky debris
and dust. Sixty-two moons are known
to orbit Saturn, of which fifty-three are
officially named. This does not include
the hundreds of moonlets comprising
the rings. Titan, Saturn’s largest moon,
and the second-largest in the Solar
System, is larger than the planet
Mercury, although less massive, and is
the only moon in the Solar System to
have a substantial atmosphere.
it takes Saturn about 29 1⁄2 years
to finish one revolution around the
Sun. Thermography has shown that
Saturn’s south pole has a warm polar
vortex, the only known example
of such a phenomenon in the Solar
System. Whereas temperatures
on Saturn are normally −185 °C,
temperatures on the vortex often
reach as high as −122 °C, suspected
to be the warmest spot on Saturn.
There have been three main phases
in the observation and exploration
of Saturn. The first era was ancient
observations — such as with the
naked eye — before the invention of
the modern telescopes. Starting in
the 17th century progressively more
advanced telescopic observations from
Earth have been made. The other type
is visitation by spacecraft, either by
orbiting or flyby. In the 21st century
observations continue from the Earth
or Earth-orbiting observatories and
from the Cassini orbiter at Saturn.
Uranus
Uranus is the seventh planet from the
Sun. It has the third-largest planetary
radius and fourth-largest planetary
mass in the Solar System. Uranus is
similar in composition to Neptune,
and both have different bulk chemical
composition from that of the larger
gas giants Jupiter and Saturn. For
this reason, scientists often classify
Uranus and Neptune as “ice giants” to
distinguish them from the gas giants.
Uranus’s atmosphere is similar to
Jupiter’s and Saturn’s in its primary
composition of hydrogen and helium,
but it contains more “ices” such as
water, ammonia, and methane, along
with traces of other hydrocarbons. It
is the coldest planetary atmosphere
in the Solar System, with a minimum
temperature of −224.2 °C, and has a
complex, layered cloud structure with
water thought to make up the lowest
clouds and methane the uppermost
layer of clouds. The interior of Uranus
is mainly composed of ices and rock.
Uranus is the only planet whose name
is derived from a figure from Greek
mythology, from the Latinized version
of the Greek god of the sky Ouranos.
Like the other giant planets, Uranus has
a ring system, a magnetosphere, and
numerous moons. The Uranian system
has a unique configuration among
those of the planets because its axis of
rotation is tilted sideways, nearly into
the plane of its solar orbit. Its north
and south poles, therefore, lie where
most other planets have their equators.
Uranus orbits the Sun once every
84 years and the rotational period
of the interior of Uranus is 17 hours,
14 minutes. Each pole gets around
42 years of continuous sunlight,
followed by 42 years of darkness.
In 1986, images from Voyager 2 showed
Uranus as an almost featureless planet
in visible light, without the cloud bands
or storms associated with the other
giant planets. Observations from Earth
have shown seasonal change and
increased weather activity as Uranus
approached its equinox in 2007.
Neptune
Neptune is the eighth and farthest
known planet from the Sun in the Solar
System. It is the fourth-largest planet by
diameter and the third-largest by mass.
Among the giant planets in the Solar
System, Neptune is the most dense.
Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth
and is slightly more massive than its
near-twin Uranus, which is 15 times the
mass of Earth and slightly larger than
Neptune. Neptune orbits the Sun once
every 164.8 years. It is named after the
Roman god of the sea.
Unlike all other large planetary moons
in the Solar System, Triton has a
retrograde orbit, indicating that it was
captured rather than forming in place;
it was probably once a dwarf planet in
the Kuiper belt.
A recent proposal is for Argo, a flyby
spacecraft to be launched in 2019, that
would visit Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and
a Kuiper belt object. The focus would
be on Neptune and its largest moon
Triton to be investigated around 2029.

Neptune is not visible to the unaided

eye and is the only planet in the
Solar System found by mathematical
prediction rather than by empirical
observation. Neptune has a planetary
ring system, though one much less
substantial than that of Saturn. The
rings may consist of ice particles
coated with silicates or carbon-based
material, which most likely gives
them a reddish hue. Neptune has 14
known moons and Triton is the largest
Neptunian moon.
Pluto
Pluto is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper
belt, a ring of bodies beyond Neptune.
It is the largest and second-most-
massive known dwarf planet in the
Solar System and the ninth-largest
and tenth-most-massive known object
directly orbiting the Sun.
Pluto was discovered in 1930, and was
originally considered the ninth planet
from the Sun. After 1992, its status as
a planet fell into question following
the discovery of several objects of
similar size in the Kuiper belt. In 2005,
Eris, which is 27% more massive than
Pluto, was discovered, which led the
International Astronomical Union
(IAU) to define the term “planet”
formally for the first time the following
year.This definition excluded Pluto and
reclassified it as a member of the new
“dwarf planet” category.
Pluto has five known moons: Charon
— the largest, with a diameter just
over half that of Pluto — ,Styx, Nix,
Kerberos, and Hydra. Pluto and Charon
are sometimes considered a binary
system because the barycenter of their
orbits does not lie within either body..
The IAU has not formalized a definition
for binary dwarf planets, and Charon is
officially classified as a moon of Pluto.
Pluto’s orbital period is 248 Earth
years. Its orbital characteristics are
substantially different from those of the
planets, which follow nearly circular
orbits around the Sun close to a flat
reference plane called the ecliptic.
Pluto’s rotation period, its day, is equal
to 6.39 Earth days. Like Uranus, Pluto
rotates on its “side” on its orbital
plane, with an axial tilt of 120°, and so
its seasonal variation is extreme; at its
solstices, one-fourth of its surface is in
continuous daylight, whereas another
fourth is in continuous darkness.
On July 14, 2015, the New Horizons
spacecraft became the first spacecraft
to fly by Pluto. During its brief
flyby, New Horizons made detailed
measurements and observations of
Pluto and its moons.
Kuiper Belt
The Kuiper belt, sometimes called
the Edgeworth–Kuiper belt, is a
circumstellar disc in the Solar System
beyond the planets, extending from the
orbit of Neptune to farthest from the
Sun. It is similar to the asteroid belt,
but it is far larger—20 times as wide
and 20 to 200 times as massive.

Like the asteroid belt, it consists mainly

of small bodies, or remnants from the
Solar System’s formation. Although
many asteroids are composed primarily
of rock and metal, most Kuiper belt
objects are composed largely of frozen
volatiles (termed “ices”), such as
methane, ammonia and water.

The Kuiper belt is home to three

officially recognized dwarf planets:
Pluto, Haumea, and Makemake. Some
of the Solar System’s moons, such as
Neptune’s Triton and Saturn’s Phoebe,
are also thought to have originated in
the region.
4
 Space
Explorationis the ongoing
discovery and
exploration of celestial
structures in outer
space by means
of continuously
evolving and growing
space technology.

61
 A brief history of
Space Exploration
museum of skies | space exploration
Humans have always looked at the
heavens and wondered about the nature
of the objects seen in the night sky.
With the development of rockets and
the advances in electronics and other
technologies in the 20th century, it
became possible to send machines and
animals and then people above Earth’s
atmosphere into outer space.
Well before technology made these
achievements possible, however, space
exploration had already captured the
minds of many people, not only aircraft
pilots and scientists but also writers and
artists. The strong hold that space travel
has always had on the imagination may
well explain why professional astronauts
and laypeople alike consent at their
great peril, in the words of Tom Wolfe in
The Right Stuff (1979), to sit “on top of
an enormous Roman candle, such as a
Redstone, Atlas, Titan or Saturn rocket,
and wait for someone to light the fuse.”
62
It perhaps also explains why space
exploration has been a common and
enduring theme in literature and art. As
centuries of speculative fiction in books
and more recently in films make clear,
“one small step for [a] man, one giant
leap for mankind” was taken by the
human spirit many times and in many
ways before Neil Armstrong stamped
humankind’s first footprint on the Moon.
Achieving spaceflight enabled humans to
begin to explore the solar system and
the rest of the universe, to understand
the many objects and phenomena
that are better observed from a space
perspective, and to use for human benefit
the resources and attributes of the space
environment. All of these activities —
discovery, scientific understanding, and
the application of that understanding to
serve human purposes—are elements of
space exploration.
Motivations for space activity
Although the possibility of exploring
space has long excited people in many
walks of life, for most of the latter 20th
century, only national governments
could afford the very high costs of
launching people and machines into
space. This reality meant that space
exploration had to serve very broad
interests, and it indeed has done so in a
variety of ways.
Government space programs have
increased knowledge, served as
indicators of national prestige and
power, enhanced national security
and military strength, and provided
significant benefits to the general public.
In areas where the private sector
could profit from activities in space,
most notably the use of satellites as
telecommunication relays, commercial
space activity has flourished without
government funding.
museum of skies | space exploration
In the early 21st century, entrepreneurs
believed that there were several other
areas of commercial potential in space,
most notably privately funded space
travel. In the years after World War II,
governments assumed a leading role in
the support of research that increased
fundamental knowledge about nature,
a role that earlier had been played by
universities, private foundations, and
other nongovernmental supporters. This
change came for two reasons.
First, the need for complex equipment
to carry out many scientific experiments
and for the large teams of researchers
to use that equipment led to costs that
only governments could afford. Second,
governments were willing to take on this
responsibility because they believed that
fundamental research would produce new
knowledge essential to the health, security,
and the quality of life of their citizens.
63
 Thus, when scientists sought government
support for early space experiments, it
was forthcoming. Since the start of space
efforts in the United States, the Soviet
Union, and Europe, national governments
have given high priority to the support
of science done in and from space. From
modest beginnings, space science has
museum of skies | space exploration
expanded under government support
to include multibillion-dollar exploratory
missions in the solar system. Examples
of such efforts include the development
of the Curiosity Mars rover, the Cassini-
Huygens mission to Saturn and its moons,
and the development of major space-
based astronomical observatories such as
the Hubble Space Telescope.
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1957
used the fact that his country had been
first to launch a satellite as evidence of the
technological power of the Soviet Union
and of the superiority of communism. He
repeated these claims after Yury Gagarin’s
orbital flight in 1961. Although U.S. Pres.
Dwight D. Eisenhower had decided not
to compete for prestige with the Soviet
Union in a space race, his successor, John F.
Kennedy, had a different view.
On April 20, 1961, in the aftermath of
the Gagarin flight, he asked his advisers
to identify a “space program which
64
promises dramatic results in which we
could win.” The response came in a May
8, 1961, memorandum recommending
that the United States commit to
sending people to the Moon, because
“dramatic achievements in space…
symbolize the technological power and
organizing capacity of a nation” and
because the ensuing prestige would be
“part of the battle along the fluid front
of the cold war.”
From 1961 until the collapse of the
Soviet Union in 1991, competition
between the United States and the
Soviet Union was a major influence
on the pace and content of their
space programs. Other countries
also viewed having a successful space
program as an impor tant indicator of
national strength.
Even before the first satellite was
launched, U.S. leaders recognized
that the ability to observe military
activities around the world from
space would be an asset to national
security. Following on the success of its
photoreconnaissance satellites, which
began operation in 1960, the United
States built increasingly complex
observation and electronic-intercept
intelligence satellites.
 In the United States, Robert Hutchings God-
dard became interested in space exploration
after reading works such as The War of the
Worlds. In his 1904 high-school graduation
speech, he stated that “it is difficult to say
what is impossible, for the dream of yester-
day is the hope of today and the reality of
tomorrow.” He received his first two pat-
ents for rocket technology in 1914, and, with
funding from the Smithsonian Institution, he
ROBERT GODDARD
published a theoretical treatise, A Method of
Reaching Extreme Altitudes, in 1919.
Goddard’s claim that rockets could be
used to send objects as far as the Moon was
widely ridiculed in the public press, includ-
ing The New York Times (which published
PROFILE
a retraction on July 17, 1969, the day after
the launch of the first manned mission to
the Moon). Thereafter, the already shy God-
dard conducted much of his work in secret,
preferring to patent rather than publish his
results. This approach limited his influence
on the development of American rocketry,
although early rocket developers in Germa-
ny took notice of his work.
In the 1920s, as a professor of physics
at Clark University in Worcester, Massa-
chusetts, he began to experiment with liq-
uid-fueled rockets. His first rocket, launched
in Auburn, Massachusetts, on March 16,
1926, rose 12.5 metres and traveled 56 me-
tres from its launching place. The noisy char-
acter of his experiments made it difficult for
Goddard to continue work in Massachusetts.
With support from an aviator and financial
assistance from a philanthropic Fund for
the Promotion of Aeronautics, he moved to
Roswell, New Mexico, where from 1930 to
1941 he built engines and launched rockets
of increasing complexity.
 Yury Alekseyevich Gagarin was a Soviet cos-
monaut who in 1961 became the first man
to travel into space. He was born on March
9, 1934 and died on March 27, 1968.
The son of a carpenter on a collective
farm, Gagarin graduated as a molder from a
trade school near Moscow in 1951. He con-
tinued his studies at the industrial college
at Saratov and concurrently took a course
in flying. On completing this course, he en-
YURI GAGARIN
tered the Soviet Air Force cadet school at
Orenburg, from which he graduated in 1957.
Gagarin’s 4 3/4-ton Vostok 1 spacecraft
was launched at 9:07 am Moscow time on
PROFILE
April 12, 1961, orbited Earth once in 1 hour
29 minutes at a maximum altitude of 187
miles (301 km), and landed at 10:55 am in the
Soviet Union. His spaceflight brought him
immediate worldwide fame. He was award-
ed the Order of Lenin and given the titles of
Hero of the Soviet Union and Pilot Cosmo-
naut of the Soviet Union. Monuments were
raised to him, and streets were renamed in
his honour across the Soviet Union.
Gagarin never went into space again but
took an active part in training other cos-
monauts. He made several tours to oth-
er nations following his historic flight, and
from 1962 he served as a deputy to the
Supreme Soviet. Gagarin was killed with
another pilot in the crash of a two-seat
jet aircraft while on what was described
as a routine training flight. His ashes were
placed in a niche in the Kremlin wall. After
his death in 1968 the town of Gzhatsk was
renamed Gagarin.
The Soviet Union also quickly
developed an array of intelligence
satellites, and later a few other
countries instituted their own satellite
observation programs. Intelligence-
gathering satellites have been used to
verify arms-control agreements, provide
warnings of military threats, and identify
targets during military operations,
among other uses.
In addition to providing security benefits,
satellites offered military forces the
potential for improved communications,
weather observation, navigation,
timing, and position location. This led
to significant government funding for
military space programs in the United
States and the Soviet Union.
Although the advantages and
disadvantages of stationing force-
delivery weapons in space have
been debated, as of the early 21st
century, such weapons had not
been deployed, nor had space-based
antisatellite systems—that is, systems
that can attack or interfere with
orbiting satellites. The stationing of
weapons of mass destruction in orbit
or on celestial bodies is prohibited by
international law.
Governments realized early on that
the ability to observe Earth from space
could provide significant benefits to
the general public apart from security
and military uses. The first application
to be pursued was the development
of satellites for assisting in weather
forecasting. A second application
museum of skies | space exploration
involved remote observation of land
and sea surfaces to gather imagery and
other data of value in crop forecasting,
resource management, environmental
monitoring, and other applications.
The U.S. and Soviet governments also
developed their own satellite-based
global positioning systems, originally for
military purposes, that could pinpoint a
user’s exact location, help in navigating
from one point to another, and provide
very precise time signals.
These satellites quickly found numerous
civilian uses in such areas as personal
navigation, surveying and cartography,
geology, air-traffic control, and the
operation of information-transfer
networks. They illustrate a reality
that has remained constant for a half
century—as space capabilities are
developed, they often can be used for
both military and civilian purposes.
67
 Another space application that began
under government sponsorship
but quickly moved into the private
sector is the relay of voice, video, and
data via orbiting satellites. Satellite
telecommunications has developed
into a multibillion-dollar business and
is the one clearly successful area of
museum of skies | space exploration
commercial space activity.
A related, but economically much
smaller, commercial space business is
the provision of launches for private
and government satellites. In 2004
a privately financed venture sent a
piloted spacecraft, SpaceShipOne, to
the lower edge of space for three brief for its own sake, “to see what is there.”
suborbital flights.
Although it was technically a much less
challenging achievement than carrying
humans into orbit, its success was seen
as an important step toward opening
up space to commercial travel and
eventually to tourism. Nearly a decade
after SpaceShipOne reached space,
several firms were poised to carry out
such suborbital flights, with one, Virgin spacecraft will continue to serve in their
Galactic, projecting the beginning of
service before the end of 2014.
68
Suggestions have been made that in
the future other areas of space activity,
including remote sensing of Earth,
utilization of resources found on the
Moon and near-Earth asteroids, and
the capture of solar energy to provide
electric power on Earth, could become
successful businesses.
Most space activities have been pursued
because they serve some utilitarian
purpose, whether increasing knowledge,
adding to national power, or making
a profit. Nevertheless, there remains
a powerful underlying sense that it is
important for humans to explore space
Although the only voyages that humans
have made away from the near vicinity of
Earth—the Apollo flights to the Moon—
were motivated by Cold War competition,
there have been recurrent calls for
humans to return to the Moon, travel to
Mars, and visit other locations in the solar
system and beyond. Until humans resume
such journeys of exploration, robotic
stead to explore the solar system and
probe the mysteries of the universe.
 Neil Alden Armstrong was born on August
5, 1930, in Wapakoneta, U.S. and died on
August 25, 2012, in Cincinnati. Armstrong
became a licensed pilot on his 16th birthday
and a naval air cadet in 1947. His studies in
aeronautical engineering were interrupted
in 1950 by his service in the Korean War. In
1955 he became a civilian research pilot for
the National Advisory Committee for Aer-
NEIL ARMSTRONG
onautics (NACA), later the National Aero-
nautics and Space Administration (NASA).
In 1962 Armstrong joined the space program
with its second group of astronauts. On 1966,
Armstrong, as command pilot of Gemini 8,
and David R. Scott rendezvoused with an
PROFILE
unmanned Agena rocket and completed
the first manual space docking maneuver.
On 1969, Armstrong, along with other as-
tronauts, blasted off in the Apollo 11 vehi-
cle toward the Moon. Four days later, the
Eagle lunar landing module, guided manually
by Armstrong. On July 20, 1969, Armstrong
stepped from the Eagle onto the Moon’s
dusty surface with the words, “That’s one
small step for [a] man, one giant leap for
mankind.” The crew deployed scientific in-
struments, collected surface samples, and
took numerous photographs.
On July 21, after 21 hours and 36 minutes
on the Moon, they began the voyage back
to Earth. After splashdown in the Pacific on
July 24, the three astronauts spent 18 days
in quarantine to guard against possible con-
tamination by lunar microbes. During the
days that followed and the tour of 21 na-
tions, they were hailed for their part in the
opening of a new era in human exploration
of the universe.
 Stephen William Hawking was born on
January 8, 1942, Oxford, England. He is an
English theoretical physicist whose theory
of exploding black holes drew upon both
relativity theory and quantum mechanics.
He also worked with space-time singulari-
ties. Hawking studied physics at University
College, Oxford in 1962 and Trinity Hall,
Cambridge in 1966. He was elected a re-
search fellow at Gonville and Caius College
at Cambridge. In the early 1960s, Hawking
STEPHEN HAWKING
contracted amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, an
incurable degenerative neuromuscular dis-
ease. He continued to work despite the dis-
ease’s progressively disabling effects. Hawk-
ing worked primarily in the field of general
relativity and particularly on the physics of
black holes.
PROFILE
Hawking’s work greatly spurred efforts
to theoretically delineate the properties
of black holes, objects about which it was
previously thought that nothing could be
known. Hawking’s contributions to physics
earned him many exceptional honours. In
1974 the Royal Society elected him one of
its youngest fellows. He became professor of
gravitational physics at Cambridge in 1977,
and after was appointed to Cambridge’s Lu-
casian professorship of mathematics, a post
once held by Isaac Newton. Hawking was
made a Commander of the British Empire in
1982 and a Companion of Honour in 1989.
He also received the Copley Medal from the
Royal Society in 2006 and the U.S. Presiden-
tial Medal of Freedom in 2009. In 2008 he
accepted a visiting research chair at the Pe-
rimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in
Waterloo, Canada.
His publications include the best sellers
A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang
to Black Holes (1988), The Universe in a
Nutshell (2001), A Briefer History of Time
(2005), and The Grand Design (2010; coau-
thored with Leonard Mlodinow).
Development of
Space Organisations
United States
As part of its response to the first
Sputnik launches, the United States
government debated how best to
organize itself for its space activities. At
the time, the military services, particularly
the air force and the army, hoped that
they would have a leading role in space.
As an alternative to this rivalry between
the services, President Eisenhower
in February 1958 created within the
Department of Defense the Advanced
Research Projects Agency (ARPA, later
the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency [DARPA]) and assigned it
responsibility for all U.S. space projects.
Soon afterward, he decided to separate
civilian from military space efforts and
proposed the creation of a National
Aeronautics and Space Administration to
manage the civilian segment. After approval
by Congress, NASA began operation
on October 1, 1958. DARPA was not
successful in establishing itself as a military
museum of skies | space exploration
space agency. By 1960, after the army
had been obliged to relinquish control
of JPL and Braun’s rocket team to NASA
management, the air force had emerged
as the leading military service for space.
Eisenhower also decided to create
a separate organization to manage
the secret reconnaissance satellite
program. This effort resulted in the
National Reconnaissance Office (NRO),
jointly directed by the Department of
Defense and the Central Intelligence
Agency. The very existence of this
organization was kept secret until 1992.
The NRO operated the initial Corona
program until 1972. It continued to
manage the development of successor
photointelligence satellite systems of
increasing technological sophistication
and also developed radar-surveillance
and electronic-signals-collection satellites.
All were operated under conditions
of the highest secrecy.
71
 After it received its mandate to send
Americans to the Moon, NASA grew
into a large organization. From its
headquarters in Washington, D.C., it
operated 10 field centres established
museum of skies | space exploration
The other U.S. military services soon
created similar organizations to administer
their smaller space activities. In 1985
these organizations were brought under a
unified U.S. Space Command, dominated

throughout the United States to
carry out research and technology
development and to manage the
various universities and industrial
contractors involved in the U.S. civilian
space program.
by the air force, which was responsible
for 85 percent of military space activities.
Research and development efforts related
to military space programs were managed
by various government laboratories and
carried out primarily by American industry.

At the peak of the Apollo program,

NASA had 34,000 employees; by the
second decade of the 21st century, this
labour force had shrunk to just over
18,000, but NASA remained by far the
largest space agency in the world.

The air force had no separate

organization for space until 1982, when
the U.S. Air Force Space Command
was created to manage its military
space operations, which involved
the use of satellites for meteorology,
communication, navigation, and early
warning of missile attack.

72
Soviet Union
In contrast to the United States, the
Soviet Union had no separate publicly
acknowledged civilian space agency. For
35 years after Sputnik, various design
bureaus—state-controlled organizations
that actually conceived and developed
aircraft and space systems—had great
influence within the Soviet system. (For
information on the history of specific
Soviet aerospace design bureaus, see
Energia, MiG, Sukhoy, and Tupolev.)
Rivalry between those bureaus and
their heads, who were known as chief
designers, was a constant reality and
posed an obstacle to a coherent Soviet
space program. Space policy decisions
were made by the Politburo of the
Central Committee of the Communist
Party as well as the Soviet government’s
Council of Ministers.
After 1965 the government’s Ministry
of General Machine Building was
assigned responsibility for managing
all Soviet space and missile programs;
the Ministry of Defense was also quite
influential in shaping space efforts. A
separate military branch, the Strategic
Missile Forces, was in charge of space
museum of skies | space exploration
launchers and strategic missiles. Various
institutes of the Soviet Academy of
Sciences, particularly the Institute for
Space Research (IKI), proposed and
managed scientific missions.
Only after the dissolution of the U.S.S.R.
did Russia create a civilian organization
for space activities. Formed in February
1992, the Russian Federal Space Agency
(Roskosmos) has acted as a central
focus for the country’s space policy and
programs. Although it began as a small
organization that dealt with international
contacts and the setting of space
policies, it quickly took on increasing
responsibility for the management of
nonmilitary space activities.
73
 Europe
In 1961, within four years of the
launch of the first U.S. and Soviet
satellites, the government of France
created the French Space Agency
(CNES), which grew to become the
museum of skies | space exploration
largest national organization of its kind
in Europe. Gradually other European
countries formed government or
government-sponsored organizations
for space, among them the German
Aerospace Center (DLR), the U.K.
Space Agency, and the Italian Space
Agency (ASI). Still others included
space as par t of their science or
technology ministries.
In 1964 a European Space Research
Organisation (ESRO), created at
the initiative of European scientists
to pool government resources in
suppor t of space science, began
operations. Ten western European
countries and Australia joined the
organization. In the same year,
a parallel European Launcher
Development Organisation (ELDO),
which had seven European member
states, was established to develop a
space launch vehicle for Europe.
74
Whereas ESRO was successful in
mounting a series of science missions,
many in collaboration with NASA,
ELDO failed in attempts to design and
launch a European rocket. In 1975 a
new European Space Agency (ESA)
was formed from ESRO and ELDO
to carry out both of their tasks. As of
2012, ESA had 20 member states—
Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic,
Denmark, Finland, France, Germany,
Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the
Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal,
Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,
and the United Kingdom.
With a budget that made it the world’s
second largest civilian space agency, ESA
carried out a comprehensive program
in space science, applications, and
infrastructure development. In particular,
the Ariane series of expendable launch
vehicles was developed under ESA
auspices, with France taking the leading
role. These launchers proved to be
extremely reliable, and they gave Europe
independent access to space and a
leading position in the commercial space
launch industry.
Asia

In Japan the University of Tokyo created military use. In 1993 an independent

an Institute of Space and Astronautical Chinese Aerospace Corporation, later
Science (ISAS) in 1964. This small group known as the China Aerospace Science
undertook the development of scientific and Technology Corporation, was
spacecraft and the vehicles needed to established to oversee most Chinese

museum of skies | space exploration

launch them, and it launched Japan’s first space-equipment manufacturers, and the
satellite, Ōsumi, in 1970. In 1969 the China National Space Administration
Japanese government founded a National was established to manage national
Space Development Agency (NASDA), space activities.
which subsequently undertook a
comprehensive program of space China initiated its own human spaceflight
technology and satellite development program in 1992. The spacecraft, called
and built a large launch vehicle for thoseShenzhou, that it developed for the
satellites. In 2001 both ISAS and NASDA effort was modeled on Russia’s time-
came under the control of the Japanese tested Soyuz design, but it relied heavily
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, on Chinese-developed technologies
Science and Technology. In 2003 ISAS, and manufacturing. Following four years
NASDA, and the National Aerospace of unmanned spacecraft tests, China
Laboratory were merged into a new launched its first indigenous astronaut,
organization, the Japan Aerospace air force pilot Yang Liwei, into orbit on
Exploration Agency (JAXA). October 15, 2003. In so doing, it became
the third country—after the former
China’s space program evolved largely Soviet Union and the United States—
in secret, under the joint control of the to achieve human spaceflight. China has
Chinese military and the Commission on followed its initial human space flight
Science, Technology, and Industry for the with the step-by-step development of
National Defense. Its space development capabilities such as space walking and
has concentrated on applications such operating a space laboratory (Tiangong)
as communications satellites and Earth- that are required for human operations
observation satellites for civilian and in low Earth orbit.

75
 Space Exploration
Timeline
1840: First clear 1957: Sputnik - The USSR
telescopic photograph of launches Sputnik 1,
another world: The Moon. the first artificial satellite
to orbit the world

1926: Goddard launches In November, the Russian

the first liquid-fuelled space dog Laika became
rocket the first animal to orbit
the earth travelling on
Sputnik 2. Her name
means “Barker” in Russian,
and her mission helped
scientists understand
whether people could
survive in space.

WOOF!
 1962: Aboard the
Friendship 7, John Glenn is
the first American to orbit
the Earth

1963: The first woman

in space was Russian
cosmonaut Valentina
Tereshkova.

1961: Soviet cosmonaut

Yuri Gagarin becomes the
first human in space
1965: NASA’s Mariner 4 1971: Russia’s Salyut 1,
conducts the first flyby the world’s first station,
throught Mars is launched from an
unmanned rocket

1969: Neil Armstrong 1977: America’s Voyager 1

becomes the first human and 2 deep space probes
to walk on the moon are launched
 1986: The MIR space 1990: The Hubble Space
station was built in Telescope is deployed in
sections, each piece Earth orbit by the space
launched by a rocket shuttle Discovery
and then joined together
in orbit. Construction
started in 1986, with the
last piece being fitted ten
years later

1995:The U.S. space

shuttle Atlantis docks to
the Russian space station
1981: The U.S. space MIR for a joint effort
shuttle era begins with
the flight of Columbia
1998: The International
Space Station (ISS) is
established. In 2000 the
first permanent crew
moved into the ISS, where
crews of astronauts have
been living ever since. It
is a huge space station
for research and space
exploration that began
construction in 1986, with
the final major module
arriving in 2010

2011: The U.S. Messenger

mission to Mercury,
launched in 2004, finally
begins its yearlong orbit of
that planet
2015: Last original
encounter with one of
the nine major planets
recognized in 1981, in
this case, Pluto. Now it is
known as a dwarf planet.

2030: The U.S. National

Space Policy of 2010
set out goals for space
exploration; to send
humans to an asteroid by
2025 and to the planet
Mars in the 2030s.
Picture bibliography
Page 6: Valladares, Nathalia. “Inverness Sky”. 2016. JPEG.
Pages 12 to 14: Unknown authors.Various titles. UCAR: Center for science education.Accessed on 10 April 2016.
Page 14: Valladares, Nathalia. “Bratislava Fog” and “Viena Contrails”. 2015. JPEG.
Page 16: Unknown author. Unknown title. Free HD photos. Accessed on 10 April 2016.
Page 18: Unknown author. Unknown title. Fatos Desconhecidos. Accessed on 10 of April 2016.
Page 20: Brady, Matthew. “The Union Army Balloon Intrepid being inflated from the gas generators for the
Battle of Fair Oaks”. 1862. Wikipedia. Accessed on 21 April 2016.
Page 21: Unknown author. “Packard and the Graf Zeppelin”. 1929. Silodrome. Accessed on 21 April 2016.
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Page 24: Illustration. “14-bis side view”. Centennial flight. Accessed on 20 April 2016
Page 27: Unknown author. “Wilbur Wright, American pioneer in aviation, and Paul Zens, famous French flier,
preparing for two man flight in Le Mans, France”. 1908. Time. Accessed on 15 of April 2016.
Page 28: Unknown author. Unknown title. BBC iWonder. Accessed on 21 April 2016.
Page 60: Unknown author. Unknown title. STEM works. Accessed on 21 April 2016.
Page 65: Unknown author. “Robert Goddard shows off one of his A-series rockets in front of his workship
in Roswell, NM, in the mid-1930s.  He gave the Smithsonian a rocket almost identical to this one in 1935.”
National Air and Space Museum: An Autobiography. National Air and Space Museum Archives, Smithsonian
Institution. Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Accessed on 15 April 2016.
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83
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