01 / 15 Deck 07 · Space Technology

Above.

Seven decades of getting hardware out of the gravity well — and increasingly bringing it back.

02 / 15 October 4, 1957

Sputnik 1.

An aluminum sphere, 58 cm across, 83.6 kg, four whip antennas, two radio transmitters. Launched from Tyuratam (now Baikonur) on an R-7 ICBM derivative. It beeped at 20 and 40 MHz for three weeks, audible on shortwave radios worldwide. It changed everything.

03 / 15 Space Race

1957–1969.

'57

Sputnik 1

First artificial satellite.

'61

Vostok 1

Yuri Gagarin, first human in space.

'62

Friendship 7

John Glenn orbits.

'65

Voskhod 2

Leonov, first EVA.

'66

Luna 9

First soft Moon landing.

'69

Apollo 11

Armstrong, Aldrin land.

04 / 15 July 20, 1969

Apollo 11.

Saturn V, 110.6 m tall, 2,970 t fully fueled — still the most powerful rocket to fly successfully until 2024. Eleven minutes from launch to LEO; 76 hours to lunar orbit; six and a half hours from landing to first step.

Saturn V, by stage:
S-IC  →  5 × F-1, kerosene/LOX, 33,400 kN takeoff thrust
S-II  →  5 × J-2, hydrogen/LOX
S-IVB →  1 × J-2, restart-capable, trans-lunar injection

05 / 15 1981–2011

Space Shuttle.

The Space Transportation System flew 135 missions over 30 years. It carried Hubble (1990), Magellan, Galileo, and assembled most of the International Space Station. Two orbiters were lost — Challenger (1986, O-ring failure) and Columbia (2003, foam strike).

Orbiter	First flight	Missions
Columbia (OV-102)	1981	28
Challenger (OV-099)	1983	10
Discovery (OV-103)	1984	39
Atlantis (OV-104)	1985	33
Endeavour (OV-105)	1992	25

06 / 15 since 1998

The ISS.

419 t. 109 m × 73 m. Over 250 visitors from 19 countries. Continuously crewed since November 2, 2000. Orbit: ~408 km, 51.6° inclination, 92 min/orbit. The first major U.S.–Russian engineering partnership of the post-Cold-War era; planned deorbit ~2031.

07 / 15 Falcon 9 · 2010

Reusability changes the curve.

SpaceX's first Falcon 9 booster recovery was December 21, 2015 (Orbcomm-2). By 2024, individual boosters had flown 20+ times. Per-launch cost to LEO fell from ~$10,000/kg in the Shuttle era to roughly $1,500/kg on Falcon 9 — a step change unmatched since the 1960s.

08 / 15 Starship

Stainless. Reusable. Big.

121 m fully stacked. 33 Raptor engines on Super Heavy. Methane/LOX. First integrated test flight April 20, 2023. By IFT-5 (October 2024) the Super Heavy booster returned to the launch tower and was caught by the Mechazilla arms — a first in spaceflight.

09 / 15 Math

The rocket equation.

Tsiolkovsky's 1903 equation determines the velocity change a rocket can achieve:

Δv = v_e · ln(m_0 / m_f)
    = I_sp · g_0 · ln(m_0 / m_f)

For LEO from Earth's surface, ~9.4 km/s of Δv is needed (including gravity and drag losses). Liquid hydrogen/LOX yields I_sp ≈ 450 s; methane/LOX ≈ 350 s; kerosene/LOX ≈ 310 s. Staging is the only way to reach orbit on chemical fuels.

10 / 15 Players, 2026

Who launches.

NASA

SLS, Orion, Artemis program — return to the Moon (Artemis II 2026).

SpaceX

Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Dragon, Starship; Starlink (~6,000 sats).

ESA

Ariane 6, Vega-C; lunar & Mars science.

Roscosmos

Soyuz, Proton successors; Luna program.

CNSA

Tiangong station, Long March family, Chang'e lunar missions.

ISRO

Chandrayaan-3 lunar landing 2023, Gaganyaan crewed program.

Rocket Lab

Electron, Neutron in development.

Blue Origin

New Shepard, New Glenn, Blue Moon lander.

11 / 15 Watch this

The film.

Watch: starship test flight

12 / 15 Orbits

Where we put things.

Regime	Altitude	Use
LEO	~200–2,000 km	ISS, Starlink, Earth observation
MEO	~2,000–35,786 km	GPS (~20,200 km), Galileo, GLONASS
GEO	35,786 km	Communications, weather (geostationary)
SSO	~600–800 km, polar	Earth imaging, sun-synchronous orbit
HEO & lunar	up to ~400,000 km	James Webb (L2), Artemis, Gateway

13 / 15 Side note

Constellations.

SpaceX's Starlink crossed 6,000 active satellites in 2024 — more than any government program. Amazon's Kuiper began launching in 2023. China's Guowang is in early deployment. The total catalogued objects in LEO doubled between 2018 and 2024.

Light pollutionConjunction riskSpectrumReentry debris

14 / 15 Glossary

Key terms.

Term	Meaning
Δv (delta-v)	Velocity change a maneuver costs.
Specific impulse	Thrust per unit propellant mass flow; engine efficiency.
Hohmann transfer	Two-burn elliptical orbit between coplanar circular orbits.
Lagrange point	Equilibrium of two-body gravity + orbital motion (L1–L5).
Aerobraking	Using atmospheric drag to lower an orbit.

15 / 15

Open problems.

Fully reusable orbital launch with rapid turnaround.
In-space propellant transfer at scale (Starship HLS depends on it).
Long-duration human spaceflight: radiation, bone loss, closed-loop life support.
Active debris removal in low Earth orbit.
A repeatable economic case for cislunar industry beyond government anchor tenancy.