astronaut

/Tag:astronaut
16 04, 2021

Sally Ride Selected as 2021 Paul E Garber Shrine Honoree.

KITTY HAWK, N.C.April 16, 2021 – The First Flight Society announced today that Sally K Ride, has been named the 2021 Honoree to be inducted into the Dr. Paul E. Garber First Flight Shrine located in the Museum and Visitors Center at the Wright Brothers National Memorial, Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, USA.

This honor is selected annually by a high-level panel appointed by the First Flight Society, from among numerous nominations submitted from around the world as well as compiled lists of qualified candidates. The Shrine is located within the Museum and Visitors Center at the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills, NC. The induction ceremony will be held on Wright Brothers Day, December 17, 2021, with a celebration banquet held on December 16, 2021 in Kitty Hawk. A portrait of Sally Ride will be unveiled and presented at the ceremony on December 17th, 2021, celebrating the 118th Anniversary of the Wright Brothers First Flight.

Sally […]

2 08, 2014

Rear Admiral Alan B. Shepard, Jr.

Inducted in 1993

The First American In Space, 1961
The Fifth Man To Walk On The Moon, 1971

1923 – 1998

Naval aviator Alan Shepard lifted off from Pad 5 at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on May 5, 1961, at 9:34 a.m. to become the first American in space. The small Mercury capsule he named “Freedom 7” was propelled into space by a slim but powerful Redstone missile. The suborbital flight reached an altitude of 116.5 miles (space begins at 100 miles altitude or 500,000 feet) at a maximum speed of 5,180 miles per hour. In 15 minutes and 22 seconds, the flight covered a distance of 302 miles downrange.

Born in East Derry, New Hampshire, on November 18, 1923, Shepard earned a bachelor’s degree at the United States Naval Academy in 1944. He served aboard a naval destroyer prior to acceptance for flight training, and by 1950 was testing jets on aircraft carriers. In 1959 […]

2 08, 2014

Colonel Yuri A. Gagarin

Inducted in 1990

First Person In Space, 1961

1934 – 1968

Colonel Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin, Soviet Air Force, became a Soviet hero as the first person to break the bonds of earth’s gravity and venture into the weightlessness of space when he orbited the earth on April 12, 1961. He described sights never before seen by man.

“I could clearly discern the outlines of continents, islands and rivers. The horizon presents a sight of unusual beauty. A delicate blue halo surrounds the earth, merging with the blackness of space in which the stars are bright and clear cut.”
Gagarin’s space voyage carried the human race beyond its planetary boundaries. Only eight years later, a person walked on the moon.

Gagarin was born on March 9, 1934, in the city of Gzhatsk, Russia, into a collective farmer’s family. He graduated in 1957 from the Voroshilov Aviation Technical Academy and soon afterward became a military fighter pilot with […]

2 08, 2014

Captain Bruce McCandless II

Inducted in 1985

First Man To Walk In Space Untethered, 1984

1937 – 2017

Challenger’s February 1984 flight was America’s tenth space shuttle mission and the first spacecraft of any nation to end its celestial travels at the site where it was launched. On February 7, 1984, five days into the mission, Captain Bruce McCandless, Mission Specialist, became the first human to walk in space without a safety line.

After waiting 18 years to make his first space flight, McCandless stepped free from Challenger into the blackness of space for a 90-minute space walk traveling as far as 320 feet from the orbiter. Using a Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), McCandless opened a new frontier in practical space walking and revolutionized man’s ability to survive and work in space.

2 08, 2014

Lieutenant Colonel John H. Glenn, Jr.

Inducted in 1978

First American To Orbit The Earth, 1962

1921 -2016

On February 20, 1962, Lieutenant Colonel John Glenn, Jr., United States Marine Corps, lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 9:47 a.m. in a small Mercury capsule. Five hours and three earth orbits later, he splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean. The 81,000-mile trip made Glenn the first American to orbit the earth.

“Friendship 7” was propelled into space by a powerful Atlas rocket. Though delayed several times, the launch was flawless. However, the automatic steering rockets malfunctioned at the end of the first orbit, forcing Glenn to assume manual control.  Shortly after, an electronic indicator warned that the capsule’s heat shield might have come loose. Inspections later found that it was the indicator, not the critically important heat shield, that had failed.

Glenn guided “Friendship 7” back to earth, demonstrating that an astronaut could cope with in-flight emergencies. This flight was the […]

1 08, 2014

Major Robert M. White

Inducted in 1971

First Astronaut Designee In A Winged Aircraft, 1962

1924 – 2010

The first men to reach space were aboard capsules, but great advancements were simultaneously being made with controlled airplane flights to the rarefied higher altitudes. Major Robert White earned “astronaut” rating by flying a winged aircraft to the lower edge of space on July 17, 1962.

White climbed to 59.6 miles (314,000 feet) above the earth’s surface in the North American X-15. This experimental, high-altitude rocket plane had passed its first test in 1959 and was progressively developed until White flew the craft, powered with 60,000 pounds of thrust, at 4,105 miles per hour.

Between 1959 and 1968, X-15s performed 199 test flights. In October 1967, a rebuilt X-15A-2 reached a speed of 4,534 miles per hour, the fastest recorded speed achieved thus far in normal flight.

White retired from the United States Air Force with the rank of Major General.