(1957-75)
The Moon and the Desert - The longest Moon walk
- Oct 04, 1957 - USSR launches the Sputnik 1 artificial satellite. The Space Race begins.
- The Space Race is part of the Cold War.
- 1958 - NASA is formed. Dave McGrath has been with the program since then ("Deadly Countdown").
- Apr 12, 1961 - USSR launches Yuri Gagarin into orbit around the Earth on Vostok 1. He becomes the first human in space.
- 1965 - Steve Austin joins NASA.
- Jul 20, 1969 - Neil Armstrong, US, becomes the first human to walk on the Moon.
- Dec 07, 1972, 12:53 AM - Steve Austin blasts off for the Moon aboard Apollo 17, and walks on it four days later. He performs a series of successful experiments, and sets the record for the longest single Moonwalk at 7 hours, 37 minutes ("The Moon and the Desert").
- 1972 - Steve sets his sights on the Space Shuttle, and becomes the chief design officer and the chief test pilot of a lifting body prototype designed to test a spacecraft's ability to reenter atmosphere and land like an airplane.
- 1972-73 - The Soviet government invites a crew of Apollo 19 to Moscow. Alexi Kaslov is one of the hosts and gets to meet Steve ("Wine, Women and War").
- May 14, 1973 - The Skylab is launched and put into service. Steve will visit her twice, in "The Rescue of Athena One" and during the "Doomsday Is Tomorrow" crisis of Jaime.
The Moon and the Desert - Lifting body
- Mar 01, 1974 - USSR Col. Vasily Zhukov proposes a joint US-USSR nuclear powered manned mission to Mars, using a former early warning station on Kamkov Island in eastern Russia, which contains a nuclear reactor deep underground, to develop and test the new spacecraft. Unfortunately, a major earthquake destructs the entire station ("Doomsday, and Counting").
- Summer 1974 - Major Kelly Wood, US, becomes the first woman in space ("The Rescue of Athena One").
- 1975 - USSR scientist Irina Leonova is developing the Venus Space Probe ("Death Probe").
- An unintended consequence of the Space Race is that it facilitates the environmental movement, as this is the first time that human can see their home world as it really appears. This is reflected in "Fires of Hell" and "The Pyramid".
- Jul 1975 - The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project human spaceflight mission launches. Soviet Soyuz 19 and US Apollo rendezvous and dock. The Space Race ends.