A milestone is an important event, not a promise about the future. The Space Race helped drive early Soviet and US missions. Later work included reusable shuttles and an international laboratory. Keep completed dates separate from programme goals. A programme can have a goal without a fixed or guaranteed completion date. Safety: Paper history activity only; do not build or launch a rocket. Stop: Stop at the verified events and station role. Do not add predicted mission dates or watch a live launch.

Materials: Paper; Pencil; Seven folded paper cards; Ruler 1. Copy these dated cards: 4 October 1957—Sputnik 1, first artificial Earth satellite; 12 April 1961—Yuri Gagarin, first human in space; 20 July 1969—Apollo 11 lands on the Moon, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the surface and Michael Collins in lunar orbit. 2. Add: 12 April 1981—first Space Shuttle launch; November 2000—continuous human presence on the International Space Station begins; 21 July 2011—last Space Shuttle landing. Sort all six event cards from earliest to latest. 3. Draw a timeline from 1950 to 2020 with seven equal decade intervals, 2 cm per decade. Place the event cards near their approximate year positions. Make the shuttle period a bar from 1981 to 2011. 4. Write a separate programme card: International Space Station—an Earth-orbiting laboratory for international science and testing how people live and work in space. This is the present-programme example verified from NASA’s station page, not a new launch promise. 5. Retell the first satellite, first person, Moon landing, shuttle era and station goal. Put a box around the goal card to show it is not another dated first. Done: Finish six ordered events, a decade-scaled timeline, and one accurate station goal card. Proof: Keep the cards and timeline. Note adult help with dates, reading, or programme-goal wording. Stop: Stop at the verified events and station role. Do not add predicted mission dates or watch a live launch.