Unmanned Space Vehicles
Robot Probes:
We build machines, to boldly go where no man has gone
before, and can not yet go. We do not yet have the technology to allow a
man to survive for a journey that will take years. However, we do have the
technology to build and deploy robotic scouts, to explore the farthest reaches
of our solar system.
Only one of these probes has ever left the solar system
though (they think it has left anyways); Voyager 1. Although long
past it's life expectency, the little robot faithfully continues it's mission.
The above picture can be found at
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/images/f23.gif
Orbiting Artificial Satellites:
The first vehicle to enter orbit about the Earth was the Sputnik-1, in 1957,
which was constructed by Soviet engineers. Today, there are many, many
orbiting robots, that provide us with communications technology, as well as data
about our planet, navigation, and (soon) broadband internet access anywhere in
the world.
The International Space Station is one of the most
recent additions to the hail of expensive debris that orbits our planet. A
picture below, which was found at
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/progress/html/iss003e8158.html