Atlas Trail
Who Built Spaceflight: Agencies, Missions and the People Behind Them
A path through the agencies that fund and fly spaceflight, the missions that proved it could be done, and the engineers, physicists and flight controllers whose work made those missions possible: from Gemini's rendezvous trials and Apollo 13's near-disaster to the space stations that followed and the private companies flying today.
Stop 1 of 6.
Missions and Programs
Ten crewed flights between Mercury and Apollo proved the rendezvous, docking and spacewalk techniques the Moon landings would need.
Stop 2 of 6.
Pioneers
The engineer who persistently championed lunar orbit rendezvous, the mission mode that made a Moon landing possible with the rockets NASA actually had.
Stop 3 of 6.
Missions and Programs
An oxygen tank explosion turned the third planned Moon landing into a survival mission, brought home by the flight controllers Kraft's Mission Control had trained.
Stop 4 of 6.
Pioneers
NASA's first flight director, who built Mission Control into the organization that got Apollo 13 home.
Stop 5 of 6.
Missions and Programs
Fifteen years of continuous Soviet, then Russian, orbital operations that proved long-duration spaceflight and set the template for the International Space Station.
Stop 6 of 6.
Space Agencies and Companies
A private company founded in 2000 carrying the work forward into the era of commercial and reusable spaceflight.
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