13 November 2014 1 Min Read

The age of the space cadet

- THE CATALYST: Sputnik I blasted into orbit on October 4 1957. The 58cm-diameter sphere's antennas broadcast signals to gauge the ionosphere. Sputnik burnt up on re-entry three months later

- DOG DAY: Laika was the first mammal in space, on Sputnik II, which relayed biomedical info. Laika didn't survive

- MAN APART: Soviet cosmonaut Major Yuri Gagarin, 27, made the first manned space flight in 1961

- OUR GUY: SA's internet whizzkid Mark Shuttleworth, left, was a space tourist

- THE MAN: 'Chuck' Yeager led the US jet pilots who later became the first astronauts - though he never flew in space himself

- SPIDERS ON MARS: Nasa's Pathfinder Sojourner rover robotic data-gathering vehicle pictured exploring the surface of the planet Mars in 1997. There have been four successful robotically operated Mars rovers, searching for signs of ancient life and water - and clues to habitability

- READY FOR BLAST-OFF: Germany's V-2 long-range missile, forerunner of rockets, which reached 'outer space' in 1942

- PIGGYBACK: Shuttle Columbia, the first reuseable craft, lifted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida in 1981 and completed 27 missions before its 2003 disaster

- WHAT A BUZZ: Astronaut Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin walking on the Moon on July 20 1969. This iconic photograph was taken by Apollo 11 mission commander Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon when he alighted from the lunar landing module Eagle onto the dust of the Sea of Tranquility

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Gazing into space has always preoccupied man, but venturing out there to take a closer look took a while.

The first man-made object that scraped into space and plummeted down again was Nazi Germany's V-2 rocket in 1942.

The Soviets' Sputnik satellite was the first object in orbit, in 1957, conducting tests, making beeping noises on the radio and getting everyone gazing upward to see its shining light spinning through the night sky. That woke up the Americans and the infamous Space Race was on - a proxy for the Cold War.

After Yuri Gagarin became the first human out there, The Right Stuff team was hot on his rocket streams. In no time there were spacewalks, moon walks, David Bowie, Stanley Kubrick, shuttles, space stations, probes of Mars, private flips into orbit - and now a 50000km/h landing on a comet a billion kilometres away. The space cadets have come a long way rather quickly.