New Delhi: Space travel may sound like something reserved for astronauts from the world’s biggest space powers, but the story is much bigger than that. Over the past six decades, people from dozens of countries have travelled beyond Earth, turning human spaceflight into a truly international achievement.
As World Space Week 2026 is being observed from October 4 to 10, it is a good time to look back at how the world reached this point and which countries have sent their citizens into space.
The journey started on April 12, 1961, when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel into space. His mission lasted only 108 minutes, but it proved that humans could survive a journey beyond Earth.
The United States and the Soviet Union then became the main players in the space race. In 1969, the US reached another historic milestone when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the Moon during NASA’s Apollo 11 mission.
But spaceflight did not remain a two country affair.
Over the years, astronauts and cosmonauts from countries across Europe, Asia, North America, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America have made their way into space. China became the third country to independently send humans into orbit, while countries such as Canada and Japan have become regular contributors to International Space Station missions.
Several nations have had at least one citizen travel to space, including India, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, Austria, Brazil, South Africa, Israel, Malaysia, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates.
For India, human spaceflight has a particularly interesting history. Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian citizen in space in 1984, travelling aboard a Soviet spacecraft. More than four decades later, Shubhanshu Shukla became the second Indian to travel to space and the first Indian to visit the International Space Station, during a private mission in 2025.
India is now preparing for another major step. The country’s Gaganyaan programme aims to send Indian astronauts into low Earth orbit using an Indian launch vehicle.
Women have also been an important part of this journey. Valentina Tereshkova of the Soviet Union became the first woman in space in 1963. Since then, women from many different countries have followed her.
And the space story is changing again. Private companies are now carrying astronauts, researchers and paying passengers beyond Earth, meaning that human spaceflight is gradually moving beyond government run programmes.
From Gagarin’s first flight to today’s international missions, the biggest change is perhaps the simplest space is no longer the achievement of just one or two nations. It has become a shared human ambition.
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