Of all the accomplishments of the twentieth century, one stands out as the greatest: flight and the beginning of the exploration of space. Within the span of a human's lifetime, the unbelievable happened. On December 17, 1903, the Wright Brothers first flew an airplane at Kitty Hawk, NC. Sixty-five years after Kitty Hawk, a human being stepped out onto another world.
It was as Carl Sagan said in 1970, "In all the history of mankind, there will be only one generation which will be the first to explore the solar system, one generation for which, in childhood the planets are distant and indistinct discs moving through the night, and for which in old age the planets are places, diverse new worlds in the course of exploration. There will be a time in our future history when the solar system will be explored and inhabited by men who will be looking outward toward the first trip to the stars. To them and to all who come after us, the present moment will be a pivotal instant in the history of mankind." (Burrows, p.ix)
Screenshot from the film: Le Voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon) (1902)
Produced & directed by Georges Méliès
Based on the Jules Verne novel, From the Earth to the Moon (1865)
Film in Public Domain
American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the great space race by The Mercury Program (1958 - 1963)
The Mercury 7 Official Group Portrait
On April 9, 1959, NASA introduced its first astronaut class, the Mercury 7. Front row, left to right: Walter M. Schirra, Jr., Donald K. "Deke" Slayton, John H. Glenn, Jr., and M. Scott Carpenter; back row, Alan B. Shepard, Jr., Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, and L. Gordon Cooper, Jr.
Source: NASA.
The Right Stuff by The Gemini Missions (1964 - 1966)
Gemini Astronauts
Why was Cape Canaveral chosen as the launchpad for the Space Program?
Source: American Moonshot: John F. Kenney and the Great Space Race pp. 145 - 146.
The Space Program either created many new products or modernized older products to make them safer, more effective or more convenient, and in some cases, all three. Some of these products are:
Sources: jpl.nasa.gov and Space Exploration (pp. 56 - 57)
Hidden Figures: the American dream and the untold story of the Black women mathematicians who helped win the space race by 
Rise of the Rocket Girls: the women who propelled us, from missiles to the moon to Mars by 
The Mercury 13 by 
Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong working at an equipment storage area on the lunar module. This is one of the few photos that show Armstrong during the moonwalk. Credits: NASA.
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed the Eagle module in the Sea of Tranquility at 4:18 EDT on July 20, 1969. After two and a half hours explring the moon, they rejoined Michael Collins in Apollo 11 for the return trip to Earth. --NASA.
Apollo 11 astronaut Edwin Aldrin photographed this iconic photo, a view of his footprint in the lunar soil, as part of an experiment to study the nature of lunar dust and the effects of pressure on the surface during the historic first manned moon landing in July 1969.(Image: © NASA)
Apollo 8: Apollo 8 : the thrilling story of the first mission to the Moon by Apollo Astronauts
Source: National Air and Space Museum.
Moonshots: 50 years of NASA space exploration seen through Hasselblad cameras by 
Picturing Apollo 11: are views and undiscovered moments by 
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