You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great - and that’s what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. It’s about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past. And I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars

NASA's Mission: Drive advances in science, technology, aeronautics, and space exploration to enhance knowledge, education, innovation, economic vitality, and stewardship of Earth.

You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great - and that’s what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. It’s about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past. And I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars

The Soviet-U.S. space race Soviet experience with space threads through much of the past century. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's pioneering rocketry work extended through the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Soviets then supplemented that experience with German V2 missile engineers acquired after the end of World War II in 1945. The United States had another group of Germans from the same program.

Since the December 14, 2013 landing, China has built a crewed space station, sent a robotic rover to Mars and become the first nation to make a controlled landing on the far side of the moon. President Xi Jinping has described building China into a space power as "our eternal dream".

The International Space Station has inspired sustainability efforts here on Earth. From the station's smaller, more efficient solar arrays to its global humanitarian applications, see how discoveries on orbit help us innovate for a better tomorrow.

Technological innovations are evolving quickly, including the advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI). This new trend has made automation more prevalent in various industries.

The American public anticipates that the coming half-century will be a period of profound scientific change. This is among the main findings of a new national survey by the Pew Research Center and Smithsonian magazine, which asked Americans about a wide range of potential scientific developments—from near-term advances like robotics and bioengineering, to more “futuristic” possibilities like teleportation or space colonization.