This infographic, posted by FlowingData, shows the number of manned space missions since the beginning of such missions, 1959. It covers the two primary producers of space missions, USSR/Russia and the US, as well as a variety of other countries. It further divides the missions into four categories: military, commercial, government and amateur.Interesting questions that this infographic brings up involve spikes in space missions. First of all, it gives a great outline of the Cold War. For this reason this infographic would be great to use in Social Studies. While the Cold War didn’t result in any actual fighting, it involved several very tense decades, including the first man made item in space, Sputnik 1.
This would also be interesting in Science class while discussing technologies used in space and their development. When a new technology is developed, it is often used to it’s fullest extent. There are ups and downs over the years of the number missions. This could be related to new technologies in space launches, space suits or the distance that could be traveled.
Blog post: http://goo.gl/wULYC
Full infographic: http://goo.gl/rbKoC