In the 1960's space travel became a reality:
-Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth in 1961.
-Eight years later, in 1969, millions of people around the world shared the thrill of the man’s first steps on the Moon, watching live television broadcasts and newspaper reports of the Apollo 11 mission.
-Soon there were space stations and satellites orbiting the Earth, and robot crafts were transmitting back data and pictures about the unexplored frontiers of space, even landing on Mars.
-Currently the longest journey ever taken steadily goes on, the spacecraft Voyager 2 speeds farther and farther away from Earth into the Universe. In 1977, Voyager 2 left Earth and in 1977 it flew past planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, before leaving the Solar System forever. This robot explorer will continue its long voyage of discovery for the hundreds of years to come.
Ships:
-New types of ships have been developed with changing demands.
-Roll-on roll-off car ferries, with doors at both ends were developed because people wanted to drive their cars for their holidays.
-In coastal waters, hovercraft and hydrofoils provide passengers with high-speed services.
-Supertankers were invented to transport oil across the world to meet the world’s fuel needs.
Cars:
-By 1990, there were 400 million cars in the world.
-Oil supplies are dwindling and pollution from car exhausts is damaging the atmosphere.
-Scientists are looking for alternatives to petrol cars, such as solar powered cars but for now they are only novelties, and fall short of motorists’ requirements.
All this new technology being invented is important because when the U.S. and the Soviet Union were going head to head to see who would have more power and come up with more ideas I guess the fact that all the spacecrafts were developed help the U.S step it up and show who has control over the whole situation to try to keep the world in peace. It is also related to some of the wars discussed in class, such as the Vietnam War, because now that spacecrafts were invented a bomb could easily be dropped off from out of space instead of having to go to the battlefield and fight putting more people's lives at risk.
Sources:
- www.thinkquest.org
- www.enotes.com
- www.msad54.org
