History Of Space Travel From Science Fiction To Science Fact.

A view of the Earth appears over the Lunar horizon as the Apollo 11 Command Module comes into view of the Moon before Astronatus Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin Jr. leave in the Lunar Module, Eagle, to become the first men to walk on the Moon`s surface. (

Humans have been dreaming of visiting the stars for over a millennium, with ancient Sanskrit writings dating back to 300 C.E. telling of mythological flying machines, or vimanas, which could be used by the gods to visit the heavens above. Likewise, Lucian: A True Story, the tale of a mortal man who gets caught up in an interstellar war between godlike space beings, was written in the Ancient Greek language around 170 C.E. by Lucian of Samosata (who, despite the title, admitted that the story was, in fact, not true).

Many historians point to this novella as the first written work of science-fiction, although it wasnt until 1818s Frankenstein by Mary Shelley that the genre really got going. Soon, numerous tales of space exploration or invasions were written, from the 1898 H.G. Wells novel War Of The Worlds to the 1942 Isaac Asimov galactic empire series Foundation. But until the German V2 rocket, the first human-made object to actually reach space, became a real success in 1944, actual flight to the stars was still considered a fantasy.