Salute to the Russians
In April of the year 1971, the Russians earned a salute from the rest of the world when they first launched a space station, the Salyut (which meant, “salute”). It was an attempt at finding out the long-term capabilities of human beings to live and work in space, and to allow experimental work to be done in the fields of solar power, industrial processes and medicine.

And, to the Americans
America followed two years later, with the Skylab that orbited the Earth. Launched in May 1973, the Skylab was a sort of space house that looked like an ordinary two storied building. It was larger than the Salyut and was about twenty feet long and twenty-one feet wide.  

One floor contained a workshop, a bedroom, kitchen and a bathroom and the second floor was mainly an experiment or a laboratory for conducting scientific tests. It was an attempt to prove that life was possible in space. The kitchen was equipped with solar powered electric plates and ovens.  

The inhabitants of the Skylab lived in space for three months, taking pictures of the Earth and the Sun. Three teams manned the space station for one hundred and seventy two days. The last of the astronauts returned and the station was left empty in orbit. In July 1979, it re-entered the atmosphere and broke up as it fell on the Earth. By this time, the Russians had launched a series of Salyut stations.

The largest
Another remarkable innovation by the Americans was the launch of space shuttle Columbia, which was a reusable space transport designed to replace other launch vehicles. It was launched on April 12, 1981 and the astronauts aboard were John Young and Robert Crippen.

The Skylab

Manned programme
The first manned space programme launched by the Americans was Project Mercury, which was an experiment to see if people could withstand the experience of launch, re-entry and the feeling of weightlessness in space. 

Man on the Moon
A record making American space project was Apollo, to try and see if man could land on the Moon and return safely to Earth. As we all know now, Neil Armstrong was the first person to set foot on the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969. Along with Edwin Aldrin, he spent two hours walking on the moon.

Space dogs
Researchers have experimented with animals and they have been sent to space stations. The first animal to travel in space was a dog. Laika, the lucky one, was launched into

Man on the Moon

space in November 1957. However, since the capsule was not intended to return to Earth, the oxygen soon ran out and Laika died in space. Three years later, the Russians sent two more dogs, Strelka and Belka on a one-day flight. This time, the capsule returned to Earth safely and so did the dogs inside it.