Zoom Explorers
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ARMSTRONG, NEIL  Neil Alden Armstrong (1930- ) was the first person to walk on the moon. He piloted NASA's Apollo 11 mission, which took off on July 16, 1969. Armstrong and Edwin E. (Buzz) Aldrin, Jr., landed on the moon on July 20, 1969, in the lunar module (landing in the Mare Tranquilitatis), while Michael Collins orbited the moon in the command module. Upon his first step on the moon, Armstrong said, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Armstrong and Aldrin explored the Moon's surface for about 2 hours. Years earlier, in 1966, Armstrong and David R. Scott performed the first successful docking of two vehicles in space on the Gemini 8 mission. |
  BONDAR, ROBERTARoberta Lynn Bondar (1945-) was the first Canadian woman to go into space. Bondar was the payload specialist on NASA's space shuttle Discovery during Mission STS-42, January 22-30, 1992. A neurobiologist, Bondar is a professor at University of Western Ontario, Ontario, Canada. |
GAGARIN, YURI Colonel Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin (March 9,1934 - March 27, 1968) was a Soviet cosmonaut and the first human in space.
Gagarin piloted the Vostok 1 mission which launched April 12, 1961. His flight lasted 108 minutes and orbited the Earth once. The spacecraft was recovered later that day in the Saratov region of the Soviet Union. |
GLENN, JOHN John Glenn (1921- ) piloted the first American manned orbital mission on February 20, 1962. He flew NASA's Friendship 7, a Mercury-Atlas 6 spacecraft, to about 162 miles in altitude, going at a maximum orbital velocity of about 17,500 miles per hour. This mission orbited the Earth 3 times and lasted 4 hours, 55 minutes, and 23 seconds, from launch to impact in the Atlantic Ocean. In 1998, 36 years later, Glenn flew a 9-day mission on the Space Shuttle (STS-95). Glenn was the US Senator from Ohio from 1974 to 1998.
For more information on Glenn, click here. |
| MONKIENAUTS Moneynauts are monkeys that were sent into space. The first monkey in sub-orbital space was a squirrel monkey called Gordo. Gordo was launched into space on December 13, 1958, in the nose cone of the US Army rocket Jupiter AM-13. Gordo did well in the flight, but drowned in the Atlantic Ocean when the flotation device on the nose cone failed and it sank. The next two monkeys in space, Able and Baker, were launched on May 28, 1959 (Jupiter AM-18). Able was a 7 pound (3.18 kilogram) rhesus monkey, and Baker, a 11 ounce (311.9 gram) squirrel monkey. They were both successfully retrieved after a 300 mile sub-orbital flight that took 16 minutes. For more information on monkeynaut, click here. Go to a monkeynaut cloze (fill in the blanks) activity printout. Go to the cloze answers. |
RIDE, SALLY Sally Kristen Ride ( May 26, 1951- ) was the first American woman in space. Dr. Ride's first trip into space was aboard NASA's space shuttle Challenger (STS-7) in 1983 (June 18-June 24). Her second (and last) space flight was the eight-day Challenger (STS 41-G) mission (in October, 1984).
For more information on Ride, click here. |
TERESHKOVA, VALENTINA Colonel-Engineer Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (1937- ) was a Soviet cosmonaut and the first woman in space. She was on the Vostok 5 mission which launched on June 16, 1963, and orbited the Earth 48 times. The flight lasted 2.95 days. The spacecraft was recovered on June 19, 1963, in the Soviet Union.
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WHITE, EDWARD H. Edward Higgins White II (1930- 1967) was an American astronaut and Air Force test pilot. He was the first American to walk in space; he was also the first person to use jet propulsion to maneuver himself in space while on a spacewalk. This spacewalk occurred on June 3, 1965, on the four-day Gemini 4 (GT-4, commanded by Jim McDivitt) mission, which circled the Earth 62 times. White was later chosen to be the Senior Pilot for the first Apollo mission (Apollo 1). Lieutenant Colonel White died on January 27, 1967, during an Apollo training session (in which they were practicing emergency procedures). A flash fire quickly burned the spacecraft, killing White and his fellow astronauts, Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee. |
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Edwin Eugene Aldrin, Jr. (1930- ) was the second man to walk on the moon. Also known as "Buzz" or "Dr. Rendezvous," Aldrin was the Lunar Module Pilot (July 16-24, 1969) on NASA's Apollo 11 mission. He and Neil Armstrong (the first man on the moon) were on the moon for about 2 hours, collecting rock samples and doing lunar surface experiments. Aldrin's first space mission was Gemini 12, which launched on November 11, 1966; he and Command Pilot James Lovell orbited Earth for 4 days. Aldrin has written many books about his life and his career as an astronaut.
COLLINS, MICHAEL
Virgil "Gus" Ivan Grissom (April 3, 1926 - January 27, 1967) was one of the original seven NASA astronauts. Grissom flew the second manned US space flight, commanded the first two-man Gemini mission, and was killed along with Edward White II and Roger Chaffee in a launch pad fire during a test for the upcoming first Apollo flight, which Grissom was scheduled to command.
Mae C. Jemison (October 17, 1956 - ) was the first African-American woman in space. Dr. Jemison is a medical doctor and a surgeon, with engineering experience. She flew on the space shuttle Endeavor (STS-47, Spacelab-J) as the Mission Specialist; the mission lifted off on September 12, 1992 and landed on September 20, 1992.
James Arthur Lovell, Jr., (March 25, 1928 - ) was NASA astronaut who flew on two Gemini missions (Gemini 7 and Gemini 12) and made two trips to the moon. Lovell was on the first lunar orbit flight, Apollo 8 (1968), and the aborted Apollo 13 mission (1970). Lovell has continued exploring, visiting both the North Pole (April 13, 1987) and South Pole (January 2000). In 1994, Lovell wrote "Lost Moon," his account of the Apollo 13 mission.
Sharon Christa Corrigan McAuliffe (1948-1986) was an American schoolteacher who was chosen to be the first teacher in space.
Ellison Shoji Onizuka (June 24, 1946 - January 28, 1986) was a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Air Force, an aerospace engineer, and a NASA astronaut. Onizuka flew on two Space Shuttle missions; he died in the Challenger explosion on January 28, 1986.
Alan B. Shepard Jr. (1923-1998) piloted America's first manned space mission. This astronaut briefly flew into space on May 5, 1961, in Freedom 7, a Mercury space capsule. The capsule splashed down at sea and was retrieved by helicopter. Shepard also piloted Apollo XIV to the moon, accompanied by Edgar D. Mitchell and Stuart A. Roosa. They took off on January 31, 1971. Shepard and Mitchell landed on the moon in the lunar module (landing near the Fra Mauro Crater) on February 5, 1971, while Roosa orbited the moon in the command module. Shepard hit golf balls on the moon during this historic trip