• Question: How did scientists first find out about space?

    Asked by libz to Donna, Jo, Mark, Stuart, timcraggs on 24 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Donna MacCallum

      Donna MacCallum answered on 22 Jun 2010:

      Good question! I don’t really know, I guess that people just wanted to see what was out there

    • Photo: Joanna Buckley

      Joanna Buckley answered on 22 Jun 2010:

      We’re curious, libz! If I see something which says ‘don’t touch’ or ‘wet paint’ then I’ll go and touch it… just to see! I’m curious and so is everyone else.

      We saw what looked like nothing up there until Galileo in the early 1600s decided to probe further. He mapped the skies and was the father of modern science. He also had an amazing beard 🙂

    • Photo: Mark Lancaster

      Mark Lancaster answered on 22 Jun 2010:

      First human foray into space was during world-war 2 with the V2 rocket and then subsequently with the Soviet Sputnik (1957) missions and first person in space in 1961 – this science was largely driven by the one-up-manship of the Cold War culminating in the 1969 moon landings…

    • Photo: Tim Craggs

      Tim Craggs answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      Hmmmm.

      I don’t know the answer to that one, but I think Galileo and Copernicus did lots of the very early work, then Newton and Kepler helped out a bit more, followed by Einstein. I think Galileo made a telescope and wrote down measurements of the positions of the planets.

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