Since the earliest days of the development of rocketry science, there has been a desire to send humans into space. Beginning in the late 1950s, the United States and the Soviet Union began developing the ability to launch humans into space. On April 12, 1961 the Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first human to fly into space. His spacecraft Vostok 1 orbited the Earth once in a mission that lasted 108 minutes. In the United States, NASA was working hard to catch up to the Soviet lead. On May 5, 1961 astronaut Alan Shepard flew the Freedom 7 spacecraft on a sub-orbital flight to become the first American in space. On February 20, 1962, astronaut John Glenn flew the Friendship 7 spacecraft to become the first American to orbit the Earth. His mission orbited the Earth 3 times and lasted for 4 hours and 55 minutes.
Beginning with the original Mercury 7 class of astronauts, NASA has developed a rigorous training program for astronauts who are preparing for the challenges of space flight. Astronauts have to be trained to respond to any and all kinds of circumstances they may encounter while in space. An important part of astronaut training is teaching them to recognize navigational stars in the night sky. In the event of a failure of navigational electronics, astronauts have to be able to navigate by the stars in the same way that has been used by ships at sea for hundreds of years. The BASF Planetarium has a proud history of providing this important education to astronauts who are in training at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. From 2000 to 2013, astronaut classes 18, 19, 20,and 21 have successfully received their night sky training in the BASF Planetarium. Many of these astronauts have gone on to fly manned missions. For a comprehensive list of NASA manned missions to space, see the timeline display of US Manned Space Flight in the lobby of the BASF Planetarium.