It was Star Trek’s Captain James T. Kirk who captured what most of us feel about space exploration when he articulated the mission “to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

We took a look back at how Parade editors (and readers) have been fascinated by space for decades, eating up stories about new planets, new launches, the possibility of female astronauts, an unusual U.s.-soviet joint mission—and even a tale of a monkey who blasted off in a tiny capsule. —Anne Krueger