A Thought or 2: Imaging from Space and a Lifetime of Technological Progress

Just this morning, I came across a link / internet resource that I found very interesting.  It's the International Space Station Earth Viewing Experience which can also be viewed in high definition via this NASA website.  For me [at my work station] this is hi-tech stuff, advanced personal science, a really excellent balance to the negative side of our world, and [during my life span] another element within specific categories of notable events or human achievement.  Given proper consideration and study, such minor or major elements can provide perspective and appreciation, comparison and contrast, and, hopefully, knowledge, understanding, and even wisdom between historical eras, generations past and future, as well as cultures and individuals.

NASA Image S119-E-010500 / 25 March 2009

Back-dropped by the blackness of space and the thin line of Earth's atmosphere, 

the International Space Station  is seen from  Space Shuttle Discovery as the two 

spacecraft begin  their relative separation.  Earlier the STS-119 and  Expedition 18 

crews  concluded 9 days,  20 hours and 10 minutes of cooperative work on board 

the  shuttle  and station.  Undocking of the two  spacecraft occurred at 2:53 p.m. 

                                      (CDT) on March 25, 2009.

So I can sit at my personal computer at work or home and stream live video from a man-made machine that is flying around Earth at an altitude of about 420 km (258 miles) and a speed of approximately 27599 km/h (17149 mph).  As I approach my fifty-fifth birthday, I wonder how did the society of which I am a part get to this point.  What achievements and events have transpired in my generation that have led to or resulted in my ability to view real-time images from outer space? Here's a chronological /  partial / sample response:

*****

1957  U.S.S.R. successfully launched Sputnik, the first man-made object to orbit Earth

1959  NASA began Project Mercury to launch single-man capsules into Earth orbit

1961  U.S.S.R. launched the first manned orbital spaceflight (Yuri Gagarin aboard Korabl-Sputnik 1)

1962  U.S.A. launched its first manned orbital spaceflight (John Glenn aboard Friendship 7)

1969  U.S.A. landed men on the Moon (Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin aboard Apollo 11)

1981  U.S.A. launched the first Space Shuttle (John Young and Robert Crippen aboard Columbia)

1990  NASA launched the [first space-based] Hubble Telescope into orbit (aboard Discovery)

1998  Russia and U.S.A. began assembly of the International Space Station

2004  The Cassini spacecraft arrived in the Saturn system carrying the ESA's Huygens probe

2011  USA launched the Mars Science Laboratory and Curiosity Rover project

2014  The High Definition Earth Viewing (HDEV) experiment aboard the ISS was activated

NASA Image - Endeavor Docked at the ISS