Buzz Aldrin takes his first steps on the Moon

Following the first successful ventures with smaller unmanned satellites, Russia and America first sent dogs and primates into space to investigate the effect of weightlessness on living things.

The first man in space was the cosmonaut Juri A. Gagarin (1934-1968), who circled the Earth once on board the Wostok 1 on 12 April 1961. He was in space for one hour and 48 minutes and attained an apogee of 327km and a perigee of 180km. He landed safe and sound in Siberia. Five further Wostok flights took place over the next two years.

The Americans followed suit with their Mercury Program. On 5 May 1961, Alan B. Shepard was the first American to go into space. The spacecraft of the Mercury Program was the Freedom 7. It flew on a ballistic flight path and completed a 15-minute sub orbital flight. On 20 February 1962, the first American astronaut, John H. Glenn jun., orbited the Earth three times.

The Russian Sojus Program was the equivalent of the American Gemini Program, and both developed the necessary technology to fly to the Moon. The Gemini flights took place from 1965 to 1966.

Apollo was launched on 16 July 1969. After reaching the Moon's orbit, Edwin E. Aldrin and Neil A. Armstrong climbed into a moon capsule. Michael Collins remained in the Moon's orbit. On 20 July, the moon capsule flew to the surface of the Moon and landed on the edge of the Mare Tranquillitatis. A few hours later, on 21 July, at 3.56 (MET) Armstrong stepped out onto the Moon and spoke the famous words: "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

The missions to the Moon planned by the USA were completed with the flight of the Apollo 17 in December 1972. The astronauts Cernan and Harrison H. Schmitt spent 22 hours on the Moon and drove 35 km in their lunar rover.

But this success came at a price: 21 astronauts have died in service since the beginning of manned space flights on 12 April 1961. Eleven of them were killed in flight.