Space History Photos

Today spacewalks are an almost routine part of space exploration but the very first spacewalk by Alexei Leonov, who died last week at 85, was anything but straightforward.

Leonov was on the short list to fly to the moon.

Spoiler alert: The man who cracks into the package of space-ready, bite-size cheese sandwiches does not taste one of the sickly, orange-and-white delicacies. Nor does he brave a "strawberry cube."

Today, Wernher von Braun is remembered as a rocket engineer who spent his career singlemindedly focused on enabling human spaceflight, first for Nazi Germany and then for the U.S.

Fifty-six years after a cat named Félicette became the first feline to launch into space, plans to build the cosmic cat's first proper memorial are beginning to take shape.

As Corvette and astronaut Scott Kelly unveil the new C8 Corvette for 2019, here's a at the Apollo-era "AstroVette" of 1969.

Able and Baker hit an altitude of 300 miles (480 kilometers) during their brief suborbital flight.

The Soviet Union launched the Cosmos 482 Venus probe on March 31, 1972. But the failed Venus craft is crashing back to Earth soon.

NASA's Apollo 12 mission sent three astronauts to the moon in November 1969 to make the second crewed lunar landing in history. See how that mission went in photos in our photo gallery here!

The Freedom was intended to be a permanently inhabited orbiting base.

Engineers inspect a boilerplate Mercury capsule.

Astronaut Kathy Sullivan poses for a picture with her space suit.

A Mercury spacecraft lands in the ocean after launched from Little Joe in a High-Q-Abort test.

After a successful mission, Cooper is assisted from his mercury capsule.

The first all-female crew of scientific experimenters prepare experiments that were used during the Space Shuttle/Spacelab missions.

A helicopter attempt to empty sea water from the Liberty Bell 7 fails.

The Apollo 9 Lunar Module is seen from the command module during the Apollo 9 earth-orbital mission.