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Learner Reviews & Feedback for A Brief History of Human Spaceflight by University of Houston

4.4
stars
420 ratings

About the Course

This course provides a view of the history of spaceflight, from early writings telling of human's fascination of space through the early Russian and American space stations. Developed as an interesting and entertaining slice of space history that is accessible to anyone with an interest in human spaceflight...

Top reviews

TT

Jun 28, 2020

I learned a lot more information about human space evolution, which I had never heard of before.

Some details that are unknown to the common gnete while with this course I managed to learn them.

PH

Nov 30, 2015

Great summary and overview of manned spaceflight in the 60s and 70s. Plenty of archival footage and rarely seen recordings from both the U S and Soviet space programs.

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1 - 25 of 133 Reviews for A Brief History of Human Spaceflight

By Graeme T

Oct 8, 2015

A nice idea but very poorly done. This would be cool topic to learn about but it is just so poorly executed.

Week 1 was just introduction. Week 2 seemed okay, reasonably interesting with a video that although was somewhat dated in style managed to grab my attention for the 40 or so minutes in length.

However Week 3 is where I get off. A 16 minute video of slides, with only a couple of minutes of narration in total with what seems like about 20 links to random articles over the internet Links to articles to read would be fine if done well, but with very little to join them up and link them back to the subject at hand is a bit boring. Also the worst part - the slides aren't posted so in order to get to these articles I had to pause the video and letter by letter type them into the address bar. I gave up after the third article and hit leave course.

By Erika C

Jul 3, 2016

Nothing but badly put together videos and recommendations for readings. The only terrible course on Coursera I've come across, and I've done a few dozen of them.

By Pete H

Nov 30, 2015

Great summary and overview of manned spaceflight in the 60s and 70s. Plenty of archival footage and rarely seen recordings from both the U S and Soviet space programs.

By David M

Nov 29, 2016

Really enjoying this course hope you will do more courses on the Space program i.e. Space shuttles etc, and rocket science/maths would be good as well..

By Ashley W

Feb 20, 2019

Lots of fascinating information and I'll be coming back to it for the old hard-to-find video -- I just keep hoping for that follow-up course with more about Apollo 11, space disasters, and more recent shuttle and ISS missions.

By Gaurav D

Sep 26, 2020

Exceptional summary of the space program. I would have loved a 5 or 10 min outro session where Dr. Chuck Layne gives his opinion or tell us some sneak peek facts or stories that we not broadcasted or in the videos.

By CEDRIC T

Sep 12, 2019

The course is a good intro for those who have no prior knowledge of space flight history. For those who have the course is definitively a history class, not a science or engineering class. Materials are good but could be presented in a more modern way with support of higher quality. Too much time is spent on the pre-history of spaceflight while very little is explained on the Soviet program and more recent programs. Automatic moon landers and moon artificial satellites are only briefly described.

By Tony L

Feb 1, 2018

The layout isn't clean. Audio often doesn't sync with video. Links for additional required reading in the videos that aren't clickable. The course as a whole seems incomplete. Not user-friendly at all. A little work could make this a fantastic course. On a positive note; the content is great and is suitable for all backgrounds. The instructor seems quite knowledgeable in the subject.

By Russell T F

Apr 8, 2018

Really great footage! In order to make the topic more interesting there should be some popular type discussions and interaction like you might see on the youtube channel TMRO.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeQYemGBA3zkt2WY5dpRxsw

Those folks do a fantastic job presenting current events in space exploration.

By Yann D

Sep 30, 2020

Very interesting class! The video content is good with interesting archives. However, some updates would be great as Prezi is not very user friendly and the whole class seemed a bit outdated in its presentation, especially in our current time where digital is becoming more and more important.

By Yubin Z

Aug 30, 2020

The video is a little chaos....

By Bill M

Dec 13, 2020

too easy

By Davin P S

Dec 6, 2020

The course wants me to seek references that are not made available accept through other website references. some LINKS WOULD BE GOOD TOO !

By Ерофеев А Ю

Aug 10, 2020

Too much reading, no lectures. I lost my interes very soon

By Zdenek K

Jul 2, 2016

just a collection of materials you'd find in any museum..

By Tona M

Jan 28, 2018

The course is brief as advertised, but does offer a comprehensive overview of the history of human spaceflight. Early Rocketry, Sputnik, Vostok, Voshod, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Soyuz, Mir, and Skylab are all featured. From early Congreve rockets with their almost total lack of guidance through Apollo-Soyuz and on to Mir and Skylab, each program, and each mission, is treated in terms of its goals and how it advanced human knowledge of technology and techniques of space flight. For those of us who lived through the early days of humanity's struggle with the unknowns of orbital and lunar space, the course is a good reminder of the history we witnessed as well as a source of information we missed at the time. For those too young to know those times, it offers a glimpse into the fears and challenges of early spaceflight, and narrates them in terms of the geopolitics of the time. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in space.!

By Prashant

Oct 14, 2015

Loved this course, I am about half way through it. I am an history bluff and this course managed to hold my interest. The course is mostly made of interesting video clips of spaceflight with narration. I thought I had seen most videos of space flight but I got to see some rare clips of the soviet space program and learn some very interesting chapters of the race to conquer space that I was unaware of.

There was an earlier review complaining of the links in the videos - but I got a message from the instructor that supplemental materials were initially missing and have now been added to the course. The links are available in the pdf after each chapter with some nicely done prezi presentations.

Overall a very well made course that hooked me on to space flight, some chapters of this should be required viewing in high school/college courses.

By Birgilio R C

Oct 15, 2015

Dr. Chuck Layne, professor, University of Houston, Coursera, Congratulations for your commitment and excellent contribution to human education and development.It is an honor to have the possibility to learn from you using all the technological advances. My name is Birgilio Rivera, born in Mexico in 1975. I studied marketing at ITESM and a Masters in Innovation for Development at EGADE Business school, in this course i have leran very important this about innovation and development that the hole history of human spaceflights has bring to humans. For ever gratfull, Birgilio Rivera, birgilio@usomx.com

By Charles O

Jul 25, 2020

This brought back memories of elementary school when we would watch the liftoffs in class and talk about the science and advances each mission brought us. We discussed how we continued to reach for the next step and do "the other hard things" President Kennedy talked about, So thank you mom, dad and teachers at Prien Lake Elementary. Excellent course with many behind the scenes information and videos. This should be required in science and civics classes.

By Veronica R

Jan 6, 2017

A great course! Now I have an idea of the timeline of events that occured during the space race and collected a lot of information I never knew. The old videoclips with the explanations were great! Hope to read you soon for the part 2 of this course, because I would like to examine in depths other aspects of the various missions.

I suggest also a course on the robotic missions, and another one on the space exploration after the Shuttle program.

By Angelina W

Jul 20, 2020

A great survey course focused entirely on humanity's attempts to go into space. Although most of the focus is on American spaceflight, the lecturer gives credit to other nations for their contributions in astronautics. Really enjoyed the live footage taken by astronauts in space!

By Sayed M

Sep 29, 2020

It is one of the best course that I ever done. It's totally awesome . I don't know much about the early space mission but after completing the course , I have earned a clear about this. It's not only achievement for USA but also the whole world.Thanks a lot.

By 廖瑩

Mar 6, 2018

An absolutely great course! As a huge space fan I enjoy every minute in this course (including the quiz)! So many interesting materials, especially the historical videos about USA/USSR missions which I find very fascinating. Highly recommend.

By David W

Oct 19, 2015

Great course offered by a great institution! Well put together. Very exciting footage, which covers the Space Race between the USA and the Soviet Union, and which really drags you in. If you like Space and related topics, do this one.

By 李丽丝

Apr 26, 2018

This course has lots of launch movies, I enjoyed it very much. It`s like I was been there watching the live.

Cause I have no opportunity to get so close to the launch spot, it`s previous. Learning these classes is quiet relax.