The First Manned Space Flight
The idea of a manned space flight dates back to Robert Goddard (the Goddard Space Flight Center is named in his honor) who laid the engineering groundwork for this modern marvel. It took a while to switch from unmanned rockets to human space flight, yet once this door was opened it created an enormous race between Russia and the United States to outdo one another. It was the first Russian manned space flight by Yuri Gagarin that finally broke the tie and set sights to the next target: the moon. For NASA human space flight was achieved when Alan Shepard took to space.

Space Flight In Modern Day
Since the days of the space race, much as changed; direct competition between two nations is not longer at the heart of the missions, but instead the idea of learning new and exciting facts about our universe has taken the lead. Of course, other reasons, as shown in the history of space flight, are readily available military experiments made during space flights. Nowadays, even the notion of high ranking officials proceeding to travel overseas on available spaces on military flights just to be able to secure a flight for one of their own on the space shuttle is nothing exciting anymore. Instead, the newest frontier is indeed the ideal of launching the first civilian-paid space travel flight to the moon or simply just into the earth’s orbit.


Preparing For Space Flight
Whether you are an astronaut preparing for space flight, a member of the military services, or a civilian who wants to get ready for a trip to the moon or space flight into the orbit, you will need to train long and hard to withstand the rigors of this experience. Not everyone will have access to a NASA space shuttle flight simulator, but anyone who has a computer and Internet connection will be able to log on to one of the many online space flight simulators.

Truly, it appears as through a space on flights yet to come will soon be given to civilians on a more regular basis, as soon as civilians can prove that they will be able to train for the flights, and also have the funds necessary to secure their spots.