Astronauts

YURI GAGARIN• Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (Russian: рий Алекс евич Гаг ринЮ́� е́� а́�

[note 1]; IPA: [ˈjʉrʲɪj ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ ɡɐˈɡarʲɪn]; 9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Russian Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostokspacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on 12 April 1961.

• Gagarin became an international celebrity, and was awarded many medals and titles, including Hero of the Soviet Union, the nation's highest honour. Vostok 1 marked his only spaceflight, but he served as backup crew to the Soyuz 1 mission (which ended in a fatal crash). Gagarin later became deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre outside Moscow, which was later named after him. Gagarin died in 1968 when the MiG-15 training jet he was piloting crashed.

Yuri Gagarin’s Images

Michael Collins• Michael Collins (born October 31, 1930), Major General, USAF, Ret., is an American

former astronaut and test pilot. Selected as part of the third group of fourteen astronauts in 1963, he flew into space twice. His first spaceflight was on Gemini 10, in which he and Command Pilot John Young performed two rendezvous with different spacecraft and Collins undertook two EVAs. His second spaceflight was as the Command Module Pilot for Apollo 11. While he stayed in orbit around the Moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left in the Lunar Module to make the first manned landing on its surface. He is one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon.

• Collins was the fourth person, and third American, to perform an EVA; and is the first person to have performed more than one EVA.

• Prior to becoming an astronaut, he had attended the United States Military Academy, and from there he joined the United States Air Force and flew F-86s at Chambley-Bussieres Air Base, France. He was accepted to the U.S. Air Force Experimental Flight Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in 1960. He unsuccessfully applied for the second astronaut group, but was accepted for the third group.

• After retiring from NASA in 1970 he took a job in the Department of State as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs. A year later he became the director of the National Air and Space Museum. He held this position until 1978 when he stepped down to become undersecretary of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1980 he took the job as Vice President of LTV Aerospace. He resigned in 1985 to start his own business.

Valantine Tereshkova• Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (Russian: Валент на и́�

Влад мировна Терешк ва; IPA: и́� о́� [vɐlʲɪnʲˈtʲinə vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvnə tʲɪrʲɪʂˈkovə] ( listen); born 6 March 1937) is the first woman to have flown in space, having been selected from more than four hundred applicants and five finalists to pilot Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963. In order to join the Cosmonaut Corps, Tereshkova was only honorarily inducted into the Soviet Air Force and thus she also became the first civilian to fly in space.[1]

• Before her recruitment as a cosmonaut, Tereshkova was a textile factory assembly worker and an amateur skydiver. After the dissolution of the first group of female cosmonauts in 1969, she became a prominent member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, holding various political offices. She remained politically active following the collapse of the Soviet Union and is still referred as a heroine in post-Soviet Russia.

• In 2013 she offered to go on a one-way trip to Mars if the opportunity arose.[2] At the opening ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics she was a flag-carrier of the Olympic flag.

Buzz Aldrin

• Buzz Aldrin (born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr.; January 20, 1930) is an American engineer and former astronaut, and the second person to walk on the Moon. He was the Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing in history. He set foot on theMoon at 03:15:16 (UTC) on July 21, 1969, following mission commander Neil Armstrong. He is also a former U.S. Air Force officerand a Command Pilot.

Neil Armstrong• National Aeronautics and Space Administration

John H. Glenn Research CenterLewis FieldCleveland, Ohio 44135

Neil A. Armstrong

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Neil A. Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, was born in Wapakoneta, Ohio, on August 5, 1930. He began his NASA career in Ohio.

After serving as a naval aviator from 1949 to 1952, Armstrong joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) in 1955. His first assignment was with the NACA Lewis Research Center (now NASA Glenn) in Cleveland. Over the next 17 years, he was an engineer, test pilot, astronaut and administrator for NACA and its successor agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

As a research pilot at NASA's Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif., he was a project pilot on many pioneering high speed aircraft, including the well known, 4000-mph X-15. He has flown over 200 different models of aircraft, including jets, rockets, helicopters and gliders.

Armstrong transferred to astronaut status in 1962. He was assigned as command pilot for the Gemini 8 mission. Gemini 8 was launched on March 16, 1966, and Armstrong performed the first successful docking of two vehicles in space.

As spacecraft commander for Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing mission, Armstrong gained the distinction of being the first man to land a craft on the moon and first to step on its surface.

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