Since time immmorial, humans have been interested in astronomy and space. This can be dated back to the work of Aryabhatta and the ideas of Greek astronomers like Aristotle. However, human journey to space, as we know today, happened much later. Today, we are in a race to conquer the planets and use our knowledge of space acquired over centuries to advance many technologies.

Space is an important frontier for many technological advances. Global Positioning Systems (GPS), International Space Station (ISS), communication satellites, and (hopefully) very soon low earth orbit satellites beaming wireless internet are some of the greatest engineering marvels. Beyond space tourism and inhabiting Mars, there are many more important reasons why space might be very important.

This fun post shows the number of trips made by American and Russian astronauts and the various expeditions to space over the last two decades.