8th+grade+-+Golden+Age+of+SF+-+Space+Exploration+(4th+block)

**Space Exploration: by Melanie Keenan**

Space exploration is the physical exploration of outer Earth objects and generally involves technology that humans have created. Many people have dreamed about going into space, and if they couldn’t they tried to imagine what it would be like there. This was where science fiction played a huge role in the exploration of space. Space exploration opened the minds of people everywhere, to imagine what would happen it the future. Between the1930’s and the 1950’s, was the time period for these crazy ideas. So, to be able to become a science fiction author you had to notice technology, which then lead up to the theory and invention of space exploration. Before the 1930’s, space exploration was only a thing to imagine. Rocket ships or aircrafts were not yet invented so many people could only dream about the vastness of space. Then on October 4, 1957 the Soviet Union launched the first satellite, Sputnik, to orbit Earth completely, making people’s imaginations into reality. Then the science fiction stories people wrote began to come true, and before long science fiction writers started to give there ideas to NASA, and other space programs. This changed the whole point of view of science fiction to people nation wide. The years that followed these great inventions came more advancement in space equipment and the whole idea of space. People started to explore space for themselves, like Sally K. Rider, the first United States woman to enter space, and Marc Garneau, the first Canadian man to enter the vastness of space. Though out these time periods, space technology advanced so greatly, that more people started to write about it. Then science fiction writers began to emerge. Space exploration became a ticket to better ideas far science fiction writers so much that science fiction altogether became poplar. This is why there was a time period called __The Golden Age of Science Fiction. http;// scholar.google.com/scholar?/q=space__