1970s Space Exploration

The Development of Technology and Science in America in the 1970s Perhaps more than any decade prior, the 1970s was one of the golden eras with numerous successes and accomplishments, especially in science and technology. Modern technology and science advanced at lightning speed. The 1970s marked the dawn of an explosion in personal computing, medicine, and space exploration revolution that changed the way people live, educate, entertain and communicate. Therefore, the American public was extremely influenced in various ways due to the convenience, efficiency and novelty provided by these impressive inventions. Development in Technology. One of the biggest changes, as seen in the 1970s America’s history reports, is the impressive advancement

The 1970s marked the explosion of the space exploration science. One of the significant developments in the field of space exploration was “the first space station operated by the United States” called Skylab. Skylab was first aimed to the space on May 14, 1973 (Howell). According to Andrew Chaikin on his research on “Greatest Space Events of the 20th Century: The 70s”, it serves as “the follow-on to Apollo. With Skylab, an Earth-orbit space station constructed largely from spare Apollo hardware, astronauts would go from visiting space to living there” (Chaikin). Designed as a small house with all modern conveniences, Skylab crew would “spend up to three months” to study the sun, celestial bodies and perform experiments “to study the behavior of materials in weightlessness” (Chaikin). Meanwhile, the Apollo mission continued lunar exploration and recorded extraordinary achievements. The Apollo 12 mission led by astronaut Charles Conrad, which started on November 14, 1969, was a success on performing some scientific experiments and taking pictures outside the Earth. However, Apollo 13 was not successful because it was cancelled due to an explosion of an oxygen tank in April 1970. After that, four more missions followed and also had some great achievements in lunar exploration. On December 1972, the last Apollo mission, Apollo 17 demonstrated the most significant record in the space exploration history. For the first time, “professional geologist, Harrison Schmitt, visited the moon surface and studied its features”. However, even though Apollo 17 wrote the final chapter in the American Apollo saga and marked an end to man’s active lunar exploration in the 20th century, it answered many questions about lunar science and provided numerous valuable information for scientists in further researches