Trends in global space exploration

Abstract

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union placed the Earth’s first artificial satellite in orbit, an event that paved the way to the space race which to date has reached an unprecedented scale. At its initial stage that proceeded in the era of the “cold” war, the driving forces of this marathon race were political and military. The prestige and security of the nation (in a broad sense of the terms) were the principal considerations that drove the leaders in space research and development to spend money generously and without hesitation. By the mid 1960s the intensity of launches reached a record figure. For example, in 1966 foreign countries launched 101 spacecraft. The transition from sporadically launched separate spacecraft to the spacedbased permanently operating systems occurred very quickly and in an avalanche fashion (Fig. 1).