One must be first: alan shepard
Alan Shepard in his space suit seated inside the
Mercury capsule. Credit: NASA/Bill Taub
Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. was born in East Derry, New
Hampshire on November 18, 1923. After graduating from the
U.S. Naval Academy in 1944, he served in World War II aboard
the destroyer Cogswell. After the war he attended flight training school and earned his wings in 1947 and went on to be a
test pilot on many different aircraft. He logged more than 8,000
hours of flying time, 3,700 hours in jet aircraft, over his career.
He went on to become one of the original Mercury astronauts and
became the first American to go into space on May 5, 1961. Inside
of the Freedom 7 spacecraft, he was launched into space by a Redstone rocket on a ballistic trajectory suborbital flight. The first American
in space enjoyed just a 15 minute flight that carried him to an altitude
of 116 statute miles and to a landing point 302 statute miles down the
Atlantic Missile Range. With astronauts today staying six months aboard
the International Space Station, that hardly seems impressive, but in 1961
it was a tremendous accomplishment. An inner ear problem discovered
later in his career grounded him from flying again, but he remained at
NASA as Chief of the Astronauts Office with responsibility for monitoring
the coordination, scheduling, and control of all activities involving NASA
astronauts. Following an operation on his ear, he was restored to flight
status in May of 1969 where he began to train on the Ap ollo program.
He went on to become the fifth American to walk on the Moon as Commander of Apollo 14. He spent a total of 9 hours and 17 minutes exploring the surface of the Moon. Much to the surprise of just about everyone, at NASA and elsewhere, he even hit a couple of golf balls up there.
One small step: neil armstrong
Neil Armstrong was born on August 5, 1930, in Wapakoneta, Ohio.
He grew up with a fascination with
airplanes and flight at an early age,
having learned to fly at the age of
15, before he could drive a car. He
went to Purdue University where he
obtained a Bachelor of Science in
Aeronautical Engineering. He later
earned his Master of Science in
Aerospace Engineering from the
University of Southern California.
His studies were interrupted in
1949 when he was called to serve
in the Korean conflict, where he
flew 78 combat missions as a Navy
Pilot. After the war, Neil left the Navy
and returned to his studies. So unlike
many of his fellow Navy Astronauts,
he was not still in the Navy when
NASA selected him to become an
Astronaut, but he’s included here
since he made a few important contributions during his career at NASA.
In 1955 he joined the National
Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
(NACA), which later became the
National Aeronautics and Space
Neil Armstrong stands next to the X-15 ship
after a research flight.
Administration (NASA). As a test pilot
and engineer, he flew many highspeed aircraft, including the X-15,
which could reach a top speed
of 4,000 miles per hour. Over the
course of his career Neil flew over
200 different aircraft including helicopters, jets, and of course rockets.
Selected to the second group
of Astronauts in 1962, Neil went on
to command the Gemini VIII mission in 1966. This would be the 6th
manned Gemini flight and the
first to perform a docking with the
unmanned Gemini Agena Target
Vehicle (GATV). The primary mission
objectives were to perform rendezvous and four docking tests with
the Agena target vehicle and to
execute an Extra Vehicular Activity
(EVA) experiment. Other objectives
included parking the Agena in a
410 km circular orbit, performing a
re-rendezvous with the Agena, and
some other tests and experiments
as well. Armstrong and his co-pilot
Astronaut Dave Scott launched
on March 16, 1966 and spent the
next six hours catching up with the
GATV which had launched an hour
and forty-one minutes earlier. They
docked their spacecraft with the
GATV at 5:14 PM. Approximately 27
minutes later the docked spacecraft
began to roll, after attempts to stop
the docked spacecraft’s roll, Armstrong undocked from the GATV. This
however sped up their rotation; the
crew then managed to shut down
the Orbit Attitude and Maneuvering
System (OAMS) that is used to control
their spacecraft and brought up the
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