1. Spaceships! And other space tech…

2. The first rockets The Chinese were the first to experiment with gunpowder and fireworks. They first used them for ceremonies and celebrations before the realised they could be used as a weapon! But as soon as the Chinese started using them everyone started getting curious!

3. Newton’s Rocket A couple hundred years later Newton came up with his laws of physics to explain why rockets work and how they can be used in space! The next couple hundred years after that we saw rockets used time and time again for war until in 1898 a Russian schoolteacher suggested using them for space exploration.

4. The Birth of Modern Rockets This schoolteacher, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, suggested using liquid fuel instead of gunpowder. Tsiolkovsky became known as the father of modern rockets. Unfortunately he could never build a liquid-fuel propelled rocket as it was very difficult. After this a man named Goddard from the USA decided to take on the task and built his own liquid- fuel rocket. It flew for 2 seconds, climbed 12 meters, travelled 50 meters and landed in a cabbage patch.

5. The V2 The V2 was the first “real rocket” It was created by the Nazis during WW2 but thankfully it took them too long to develop that the Allies had pretty much won the war already. They were similar to Goddard’s rocket only they could travel across the Atlantic if they needed and instead of a cabbage patch they were aimed at London!

7. The Space Race After the war rockets were captured by the Americans and the Russians which began the space race for the next 20 years or so. The Russians got the jump on the US when they launched the first ever artificial satellite, Sputnik I.

8. The Space Shuttle We’re going to skip the history by about 30 years and go to NASA’s most successful spaceship Since 1981, NASA space shuttles have been rocketing from the Florida coast into Earth orbit. The five orbiters — Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour — have flown more than 130 times, carrying over 350 people into space and travelling more than half a billion miles, more than enough to reach Jupiter. Designed to return to Earth and land like a giant glider, the shuttle was the world's first reusable space vehicle.

9. Space Shuttle Design http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/the_shuttle/

10. The International Space Station Most of the Space shuttle missions were delivery runs back and forth between the ISS. The ISS is a space station with a crew on board that orbits Earth every 90 minutes.

11. What does it do? The ISS serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory in which crew members conduct experiments in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy, meteorology and other fields.

12. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5ceKXK6Kdk

14. Future Spaceflight The next big thing for human spaceflight is definitely going to be a manned flight to Mars. Mars One is a Dutch organisation that plans to send a manned spacecraft to mars by 2024. They’re currently down to the last 100 in the selection process for the first crew!

15. Mars One Roadmap 2015: Crew training starts 2018: Communication Satellite Launched 2020: Rover and satellite launched 2022: 6 cargo missions launched to establish the colony 2023: The rover sets up the colony 2024: Crew 1 departs 2025: Crew 1 lands 2026: Crew 2 departs.