Im unsure. I understand no living thing could survive the microwave radiation of the van Allen belts without lead shielding so heavy it wouldn’t get off the ground, (and the Apollo craft amounted to just Mylar coated aluminum soda cans) but unmanned craft could have made it past that step.
I just don’t know where else the lies, lay.
Like your photo hitting the firmament, and then the rockets always have had to ‘have to fly horizontally’ in at least one orbit around the earth for ‘reasons’ before doing anything else. So they Go up and then they ALWAYS change to travel ‘sideways’ until out of camera range.