At the same time, scientists have been repeatedly surprised by their discoveries. Some of those discoveries revealed the dangers of space, like the van allen radiation belt, dangerous to astronauts without the right kind of protection. Nasa also discovered the massive radiation belt surrounding jupiter thanks to the pioneer probes in 1973 and 1974. Similarly, with the knowledge that titan, the largest moon of saturn, has a thick atmosphere, later missions were sent to investigate the moon up close. Thus, the huygens lander pierced the titan atmosphere in january of 2005 to investigate. You’ll discover: •Early rocketry, from chinese fireworks to the terrifying german v-2 missiles of wwii. •The cold war rivalry between the united states and the soviet union. •The origins of nasa. •The original mercury 7 astronauts. •The cosmonauts who went where no one had gone before. •The spacecraft that brought us to the moon. •Concise biographies of the pioneering men and women who first explored the heavens. •Glossary and timeline. In the decades after the apollo program, american space shuttles flew over 130 missions and successfully completed over 98% of them, but unfortunately, the two most famous missions were the ones that ended tragically aboard the challenger and columbia. The space shuttle challenger was the most heavily used space shuttle in the three years it was operational, carrying the first minority astronaut and woman astronaut into space. Challenger was also the first space shuttle to complete a landing at night.