Long before space travel even became technically possible, Western and Eastern physicists and space researchers had designed, at the start of the 20s, the first models of artificial earth satellites and space stations that would be inhabited by humans.
The first space stations were the Skylab (United States) and Salyut (Soviet Union). They orbited around the earth for a long time. From 1971, the Soviets put a total of 8 space stations in orbit around the earth.
There were some initial problems with the power of the data transmission, but in the Salyut 6, which was launched in 1977, the Russians found a model that worked for several years and to which numerous cosmonauts were able to fly.
Even unmanned capsules were launched in this time; they regularly transported supplies of fuel, oxygen and even food and magazines to the space station. Soyuz 12, which visited the space station Salyut 12, was the craft in which the first woman to walk in space (Svetlana Savizkaya) flew.
The space station Mir, launched in 1986, is the successor of the Salyut series. It has six docking stations that are used by different space agencies. Thus, for example, in 1992 and in the years that followed, German astronauts were able to accompany their Russian colleagues.
The American Skylab project was the successor of the Apollo missions. The space station was constructed by remodeling the Saturn V rocket, which had been used in flights to the moon. The former fuel tank became the living area and the laboratory.
A great deal of research in the areas of astronomy, earth observation and even medicine was carried out with Skylab. Three astronauts lived in the station for periods of one to three months each. They carried out solar observations with telescopes for more than 700 hours, sent more than 175,000 images of the Sun and almost 50,000 images of the surface of the earth back to the earth.
They also carried out medical and other technical and scientific experiments. A new era of the Space Age began in the 80's with the first space shuttle missions. The Shuttle is a multi-purpose space glider.
It can carry up to seven crew members and up to thirteen times the payload of a traditional rocket into space. Depending on the tasks involved, it can put out space_probes and news satellites as well as spy satellites or environmental satellites into various orbits or repair those already in space.
This versatility is what distinguishes the space shuttle. It can return to Earth like a normal airplane and get readied for re-deployment. There was a catastrophe, when, in 1986, the spaceship Challenger exploded just 73 seconds after its lift-off.
All the crew were killed and the space program was temporarily halted. In 1990, the Hubble_space_telescope was put in position with the space shuttle.
