A century compressed into seven eras — from a 2.5-second gasoline rocket on a Massachusetts farm to boosters caught out of the air by their own launch towers.
This is not a highlight reel. Each era tracks three things: what people were trying to do, what technology made it possible, and what it cost when it failed. The important machines can be pulled apart — click into a spacecraft to explode it into components and see why each part exists.
Dates and figures compiled from NASA History Division records, "Apollo by the Numbers" (NASA SP-2000-4029), the Rogers Commission Report (1986), the CAIB Report (2003), the NSTS Shuttle Reference Manual (1988), and manufacturer-published specifications. Exploded diagrams are schematic, not to scale.