The First Persons to Explore Outer Space

Vostok 1, the first human spaceflight, took Yuri Gagarin into space on April 12, 1961.  It was launched from Kazakhstan by the USSR.  The entire Vostok 1 experience consisted of a single orbit around the Earth, which took around 100 minutes from launch to landing.  At the height of 7km as the spacecraft headed back to Earth, Yuri Gagarin ejected himself, parachuting to the ground.

The Freedom 7 mission was conducted by the United States.  It took Alan Shepard into space, making him the 2nd human space-explorer.  It was a 15-minute flight as Alan Shepard bore the g-forces and atmospheric pressure of re-entry.  After re-entry into the atmosphere the spacecraft’s capsule landed in the North Atlantic Ocean.  It was boarded on a U.S. navy aircraft carrier to be sent back home. The mission was carried out on May 5, 1961.

John Glenn was the 3rd person to experience orbital flight around the Earth in space.  He carried out this mission on February 20, 1962. It took him 4 hours and 55 minutes to circle around the globe, three times, in his spacecraft Friendship 7.  The official name of this mission was Mercury-Atlas 6.  One notable fact about this mission was the maintenance of the speed for low-Earth orbit, 7.8km per second.

On 16 June, 1963 Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to enter space.  Tereshkova headed the USSR mission Vostok 6.  It was launched on June 16, 1963 as the previous mission Vostok 5 couldn’t take off due to the technical problems.  Mission personnel saw this as an opportunity to see if a woman's physiology might respond to space entry differently; technicians gathered data on Tereshkova's physiological reactions during the mission.

Alexi Leonov became the first man to 'walk in space', which he did while tethered to the spacecraft.  He did that famous walk on March 19, 1965 as he left his space capsule to float freely in space.  The mission was named Voskhod 2 and was another step in the Soviet Union’s attempt to mount a mission to land on the moon before the United States.

Ed White became the first American to walk in space, outside a capsule named Gemini on June 3, 1965.  White belonged to NASA’s Astronaut Group 2; a group selected for the Gemini program.  Two years later White headed the Apollo mission but the spacecraft caught fire – he was one of the first casualties in the quest of space.

Frank Borman, commander; William Anders, Lunar Module pilot; and James Lovell, Command Module pilot were part of the Apollo program aimed at reaching the moon.  On December 21, 1968, Apollo 8 became the first mission to achieve moon orbit – after a journey lasting 68 hours.  The crew orbited the moon ten times in a period of twenty hours.  The group of three astronauts witnessed Earthrise from the far side of the moon during the orbital flight.

In the Apollo 11 mission, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin became the first men to ever walk on the surface of the moon.  They landed on July 20, 1969 – the first American spaceflight to touch down on the lunar surface.  Armstrong was the first person to step down from the spacecraft ladder onto the moon, saying as he did so, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind".^[C1]  Aldrin joined him 19 minutes later.  They dubbed the site where they landed Tranquility Base.

Apollo 17 was the last mission aimed at reaching the moon; Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt are the last men to have walked on the moon. The mission took place from December 7 to 19, 1972.  Ronald Evans orbited above while the other two walked the lunar surface.  Schmitt was a professional geologist as NASA wanted to send a scientist to the moon.  Additionally, a biological experiment containing five mice was carried out in the command module.  Evans orbited the moon for 147 hours and 48 minutes.