Space exploration involves sending spacecraft into space for the purpose of scientific discovery. This can be unmanned or manned, with humans on board. Since the late 20th century, when rockets became powerful enough to overcome Earth’s gravity and reach orbital velocities, space exploration has been carried out by national and private space agencies. In the United States, NASA is in charge of manned spaceflight. In Russia, the equivalent agency is Energia; in China, it’s CCST.
The early manned missions were part of the “Space Race” between the United States and the Soviet Union, which was really just an attempt by the two superpowers to prove their superiority in technology. In the end, the US won when it sent astronauts to the Moon in 1969 for the first manned lunar landing.
After that, scientists continued to explore the Solar System with uncrewed spacecraft. They used landers to send soil samples back to Earth, and probes like the Voyagers pushed deeper into the Solar System into its heliosphere.
More recently, satellites have been built for a variety of purposes such as communications and Earth observation. The commercial spaceflight industry has grown, with companies such as SpaceX making reusable rockets and offering low-cost rides into space. And there’s more — studies are ongoing to figure out how the Universe is expanding, for example, and to better understand dark energy. Many of the technologies developed for space exploration have spinoffs that can benefit people on Earth. That includes everything from GPS on our phones to the background radiation that can help astronomers pinpoint the location of distant supermassive black holes.
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