Manned Spacecraft

Since the early 1970s, both the Soviet Union and the United States have sought to develop orbiting space stations. The emphasis in each nation has, however, been somewhat different.

The development of a successful space station requires two major feats: the construction of a habitat in space in which humans can live and work for long periods of time (months or years), and the development of a ferry system by which astronauts and materials can be transported from Earth to the space station and back. The Soviets have focused on the first of these two features and the Americans on the second.

The liftoff of Apollo 11 from pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center on July 16, 1969 at 9:32 A.M. Crewmen Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. achieved the first successful manned lunar landing on the Apollo 11 mission. U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).