The Orbital Programmes

There have been countless proposals and plans for programmes to support the manned exploration of space. Some never left the drawing boards, while others got as far as having hardware produced, only to be cancelled for a variety of reasons prior to the first manned flight. The following are the main manned programmes that have been conducted since 1961. For more in-depth information about these pro­grammes, see the Bibliography.

INTO SPACE

The Cold War-inspired space race launched man into space sooner than was perhaps planned, and with rapidly developed hardware. America developed the bell-shaped Mercury capsule and the Soviet Union came up with a “space ball”, all to achieve the goal of “Man in Space Soonest”, or “MISS”, as the Americans called it. The Soviet Union won this particular race, with their one-man Vostok capsule, shaped like a ball. It had an ejection seat to allow emergency escape and for the cosmonaut to eject prior to landing. It was one way of saving development time in order to get their “Man in Space Soonest”.