The spirit of discovery and exploration characterized the 1970s in science and technology in several disciplines. It reached its zenith with the ambitious Voyager program in 1977. The program consisted of the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 unmanned expeditions sent to several of the outer planets in the solar system. The Voyager program also sent a Voyager Golden Record with the spaceship presenting aspects of life on Earth to intelligent alien life forms outside the Earth. The record contained pictures and other data about human beings and other living beings on earth. It also had an assortment of music from across cultures.

Coupled with the zenithal achievements of the Voyagers, came the end of manned spacecraft on the part of NASA, with termination of the Apollo lunar flights in 1972 with Apollo 17. The Apollo-Soyuz and Spacelab programs completed in 1976, and there would be a five-year hiatus in American manned spaceflight until the flight of the Space Shuttle. The Soviet Union would develop vital technologies involving long-term human life in free-fall on the Salyut and later Mir space stations.