Look to the stars this Space Week

Opinion

This week, known as Space Week, takes place on Oct. 4-10. The dates are in recognition of the Oct. 4, 1957 launch of the first human-made Earth satellite, Sputnik 1, thus opening the way for space exploration. It’s a global week marked by more than 90 different countries with over 15,000 events for this singular week alone, including school events, public events and outreach programs — all organized worldwide by schools, space agencies, planetaria, aerospace companies and many others!

Co-ordinated by the World Space Week Association, a non-profit with 43 years of space advocacy. For World Space Week 2025, the chosen theme is Living in Space. This theme explores humanity’s journey toward making space a habitat, emphasizing the innovative technologies, challenges and collaborative efforts that make this vision a reality. It’s one of the largest space events in the world.

One of the purposes of this week is to recognize achievements in the history of space travel. The first human to enter space was Yuri Alekseyevic Gargarin from the Soviet Union. His vehicle, Vostok 1, circled Earth at a speed of 27,400 km/h, with the flight lasting 108 minutes. Vostok 1’s re-entry was controlled by a computer. Unlike the early U.S. human spaceflight programs, Gagarin did not land inside of the capsule. Instead, he ejected from the spacecraft and landed by parachute.

Before humans actually went into space, one of the prevailing theories of the perils of space flight was that humans might not be able to survive long periods of weightlessness. For several years, there had been a serious debate among scientists about the effects of prolonged weightlessness. American and Russian scientists utilized animals — mainly monkeys, chimps and dogs — to test each country’s ability to launch a living organism into space and bring it back alive and unharmed.

Some famous animals that went to space were Laika, who was a Soviet stray dog; she was the first living being to orbit the Earth in 1957 aboard Sputnik 2, though she did not survive the mission. The second was, Ham: in 1961, this chimpanzee successfully completed a suborbital flight for NASA’s Mercury program. Third, we had Félicette, the first cat in space, who was launched by France in 1963; she survived her 1963 sub-orbital space flight but was euthanized two months later by French scientists to study her brain for the effects of space travel.

What’s the purpose of World Space Week? According to worldspaceweek.org, its goals are to educate people around the world about the benefits that they receive from space, encourage the use of space for sustainable economic development, foster enthusiastic education and interest in science, and promote co-operation between nations through space outreach and education. So look to the stars this week as we examine humanity’s desire for exploration.

» Sharon Bill is a Grade 10 student at École secondaire Neelin High School.