Preparations for the launch of SpaceX Starship are a good opportunity to recall all the other rockets that mankind has launched into outer space over the past 80 years. We will remind you that the first artificial object was launched into space not on October 4, 1957, but 13 years before that, on June 20, 1944, during the test of the German Vergeltungswaffe 2 rocket, better known as V-2, at the Peenemünde test site, which was located in the land of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

But we got distracted. Rockets. You’ve probably seen this illustration many times before with all the launch vehicles created by mankind, but here’s an updated version, with Starship, Arian 6, SLS and Nuri. You can stare at it for a long time, and there are, of course, Ukrainian rockets.

By the way, the record for the largest number of launches (suborbital and ballistic, but anyway) is still held by the same German V-2, which became the basis of the space programs of both the USSR and the USA – more than 2,800 launches, including trophy rocket launches by the allies. On the other hand, 950 of them ended in disasters, at the first stage of the conquest of space, explosions of rockets on the launch table were commonplace.

How do you think today’s test will end?