Space Travel

Theory

Velocity required to overcome the gravitational pull of an astronomical body (particularly Earth)		Escape velocity
The Earth's escape velocity		7 miles per second
An orbit (35,900 km above the equator) in which a satellite remains above the same point on the Earth's surface		Geostationary
Height above the equator for a geostationary orbit		35,900 km (22,000 m)
Name given to the boundary between the Earth's atmosphere and "outer space", according to the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the international standard–setting and record–keeping body for aeronautics and astronautics. Named after the Hungarian–American engineer and physicist who was the first to calculate that around this altitude the atmosphere becomes too thin to support aeronautical flight		Kármán line
Altitude of the Kármán line		100 km (62 miles)

Animals in Space

20 February 1947: the first animals in space, aboard a German V–2 rocket launched by the USA. They were recovered alive. (The rocket reached an altitude of 68 miles; see Karman line)		Fruit flies
14 June 1949: the first monkey in space, in another US–launched V2 rocket – reached about 83 miles (134 km), but died on impact after a parachute failure. (The first Albert's mission had failed on ascent, reaching only 30–39 miles, 48–63 km)		Albert II
22 July 1951: two dogs become the first living higher organisms to return safely from space, on the Soviet flight R–1 IIIA–1 (the first name means Gypsy; the second dog died in another flight two months later)		Tsygan and Dezik
3 November 1957: a 3–year–old stray dog from the streets of Moscow becomes the first living creature (apart from microbes) to orbit the Earth, in Sputnik 2. (It was revealed in 2002 that she died within hours of launch, from overheating, due to an unexplained system failure; official reports at the time said she was euthanized before her oxygen ran out, but in any case the spacecraft was not retrievable and she was not intended to survive the flight. Sputnik 2 re–entered Earth's atmosphere 162 days later, on 14 April 1958, as its orbit decayed.)		Laika
28 May 1959: the first monkeys to return safely from space, after reaching an altitude of 360 miles and experiencing weightlessness for nine minutes. (The first, a rhesus monkey, died four days later from a reaction to anesthesia, while undergoing surgery to remove an infected medical electrode; but the other, a squirrel monkey, lived at the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, until 29 November 1984)		Able and Baker
19–20 August 1960: the first higher animals to return safely from orbit – two dogs; the names mean Squirrel, or Whitey, and Little Arrow. They made a 21¼–hour flight aboard Korabl–Sputnik 2 (also, incorrectly, known as Sputnik 5). Strelka went on to have six puppies, one of which (named Pushinka – "Fluffy") was presented to President John F. Kennedy's daughter Caroline by Nikita Khrushchev. Pushinka went on to have four puppies by a Kennedy dog named Charlie, which JFK jokingly referred to as pupniks		Belka and Strelka
31 January 1961: the first hominid in space: on a sub–orbital Mercury mission (MR2), which lasted 16 minutes 39 seconds – a chimpanzee named ...		Ham
22 February 1961: France launches a rat in the nose cone of a Veronique rocket, which reaches an altitude of 93 miles above the Sahara desert; the name given by the media to the rat (which survived the flight) was ...		Hector
29 November 1961: the first chimpanzee to orbit the Earth; in a dress rehearsal for NASA's first manned flight, Mercury Atlas 5 makes 2 orbits (of the three that were planned); the chimpanzee returns safely		Enos

People in Space

12 April 1961: the first human being in space, on Vostok 1 (aged 27 years, 34 days); the flight lasts 108 minutes and completes one orbit		Yuri Gagarin
5 May 1961: second person in space, and the first American astronaut; Mercury–Redstone 3 (a.k.a. Freedom 7; originally planned for 5 December 1960, but postponed five times) takes 15 minutes and follows a ballistic trajectory, reaching an altitude of 116 miles (187 km), and splashes down in the Atlantic Ocean, 302 miles (486 km) from the launch site		Alan Shepard
21 July 1961: the second American astronaut; Mercury–Redstone 4 (a.k.a. Liberty Bell 7), again on a ballistic trajectory, takes 15 minutes and 30 seconds, reaching an altitude of 102.8 miles (190.4 km), and splashes down in the Atlantic Ocean, 302 miles (486.2 km) from the launch site – same horizontal distance as the previous mission, but slightly higher		Virgil 'Gus' Grissom
6 August 1961, in Vostok 2: fourth person in space, second to orbit the Earth, first to orbit the Earth multiple times (17), first to spend more than a day in space (25 hours 18 minutes), first to sleep in orbit, and first to vomit in space		Gherman Titov
20 February 1962: the first US astronaut to orbit the Earth; Mercury–Atlas 6 (a.k.a. Friendship 7) completes three orbits, taking 4 hours, 55 minutes, and 23 seconds; later (in 1998, aged 77) flew as a Payload Specialist on the space shuttle Discovery (mission STS–95), becoming the oldest man ever to go into space, and the only one to fly in both the Mercury and Space Shuttle programs; also stood as Senator for Ohio, 1974–99, and ran (unsuccessfully) for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 1984; died in 2016, aged 95		John Glenn
16 June 1963: the first woman in space (on Vostok 6)		Valentina Tereshkova
18 March 1965: the first space walker (on Voskhod 2) – died in 2019, aged 85		Aleksey Leonov
23 March 1965: crew of the first manned Gemini mission (Gemini 3 – flight lasts 4 hours 52 minutes and completes three orbits)		Virgil 'Gus' Grissom
		John Young
3 June 1965: the first American to walk in space (Gemini 4)		Edward White
25 May 1973: crew of the first manned mission to Skylab (Skylab 2)		Pete Conrad
		Joseph Kerwin
		Paul Weitz
2 March 1978: Czechoslovakian cosmonaut – the first person in space, who wasn't from the USA or USSR (Soyuz 28)		Vladimir Remek
The second woman in space (19 August 1982), the first woman to fly to space twice (17 July 1984), and the first woman to perform a spacewalk (25 July 1984)		Svetlana Savitskaya
18 June 1983: the first American woman in space (on the seventh space shuttle mission, and the second flight of Challenger)		Sally Ride
7 February 1984: the first untethered EVA (first walk in space without a safety line) – during the fourth flight of the Space Shuttle Challenger		Bruce McCandless
28 January 1986: school teacher who died in the Challenger disaster – the first 'spaceflight participant' (i.e. someone who takes part in a spaceflight but is not a member of the crew)		Christa McAuliffe
18 May 1991: the first British astronaut (visited the Soviet space station Mir on the Soyuz TM–12 mission, spending eight days in space)		Helen Sharman
Born 1957 in Lincolnshire, with dual UK–US citizenship (his mother was American): joined NASA as an astrophysicist in 1983. Flew six space shuttle missions, and nine space missions altogether; spent 20 weeks on Mir in 1997, when he became the first Briton to walk in space; his first mission was on the space shuttle Atlantis (launched 24 March 1992), and his last was on a Soyuz spacecraft (launched 18 October 2003)		Dr. Michael Foale
9 February 1995: first black person to walk in space (accompanied Michael Foale)		Bernard Harris
28 April 2001: the second 'spaceflight participant' (see Christa McAuliffe), and the first space tourist (i.e. self–funded spaceflight participant): spent almost 8 days on Soyuz TM–32		Dennis Tito
Canadian astronaut who ended a 145–day stint on the ISS with a rendition of David Bowie's Space Oddity in May 2013		Chris Hadfield
The first British astronaut to fly with the European Space Agency (ESA), the sixth UK–born person to go on board the International Space Station (see Michael Foale) and the seventh in space (see Helen Sharman); launched to the International Space Station (ISS) in December 2015; started the London Marathon from space in April 2016		Tim Peake

Spacecraft

Note that the Apollo and Space Shuttle programmes are covered separately (below).

1950s

4 October 1957: USSR launches the first artificial satellite; it transmits signals for 21 days (until the batteries run out) and burns up 70 days later, on 4 January 1958, on re–entering Earth's atmosphere as its orbit decays		Sputnik 1
Meaning of Sputnik		Fellow Traveller
3 November 1957: the Soviet mission that carried the dog Laika into space (re–entered Earth's atmosphere 162 days later, on 14 April 1958, as its orbit decayed)		Sputnik 2
1 February 1958: the USA's first spacecraft; confirmed the existence of the Van Allen belts; returned data for four months, and remained in orbit until 1970		Explorer 1
2 January 1959: Soviet mission intended to crash–land on the Moon; but due to a miscalculation it misses, and enters heliocentric orbit		Luna 1
12 September 1959: the USSR's second attempt to crash–land a spacecraft on the moon – which it succeeds in doing two days later		Luna 2
4 October 1959: Soviet mission that took the first photographs of the far side of the moon, making its closest approach two days after launch		Luna 3

1960s

12 February 1961: Soviet mission that passed within 100,000 km of Venus (19 May); the first spacecraft to visit another planet (no data was returned as radio contact was lost before the flyby)			Venera 1
12 April 1961: Soviet mission that made Yuri Gagarin the first man in space – making one complete orbit			Vostok 1
5 May 1961: the mission that made Alan Shepard the second person in space, and the first American			Mercury–Redstone 3
The name that Shepard gave to his spacecraft			Freedom 7
21 July 1961: the name that Virgil 'Gus' Grissom gave to his capsule (officially Mercury–Redstone 4)			Liberty Bell 7
6 August 1961: the mission that made Gherman Titov the fourth person in space, second to orbit the Earth, first to orbit the Earth multiple times (17), first to spend more than a day in space, first to sleep in orbit, and first to vomit in space			Vostok 2
20 February 1962: the name that John Glenn gave to the capsule (officially Mercury–Atlas 6) that made him the first American to orbit the Earth			Friendship 7
10 July 1962: the first privately sponsored spacecraft; transmits its first (private) television pictures the following day, and its first public broadcast twelve days later (23 July); relayed the first transatlantic television signals			Telstar
The first spacecraft to reach and pass another planet; launched on 27 August 1962, it passed within 35,000 km (just over 21,600 mi) of Venus on 14 December 1962			Mariner 2
16 June 1963: the solo mission on which Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space			Vostok 6
7 May 1963			Telstar 2
28 July 1964: makes the USA's first (unmanned) lunar landing, and takes the first close–up pictures of the Moon			Ranger 7
Launched 28 November 1964: performed the first successful flyby of the planet Mars in July 1965, passing within 10,000 km (just over 6,000 miles) and returning the first close–up pictures of the Martian surface			Mariner 4
18 March 1965: the mission on which Aleksey Leonov made the first space walk			Voskhod 2
23 March 1965: the first manned Gemini mission			Gemini 3
6 April 1965: the first commercial telecommunications satellite (launched from Cape Kennedy)	Official name		Intelsat I
	Nickname		Early Bird
3 February 1966: the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon (launched 31 January)			Luna 9
3 April 1966: the first artificial satellite of the moon (launched 31 March; transmissions ended on 30 May when the batteries ran out)			Luna 10

1970s

12 September 1970: places a robotic probe on the Moon and returns soil samples to Earth		Luna 16
10 November 1970: places the first remote vehicle on the Moon		Luna 17
Launched 19 April 1971: the first orbiting space laboratory; de–orbited after 175 days because it ran out of fuel		Salyut 1
Launched on 22 April 1971 as the first mission to the world's first space station, Salyut 1; returned to Earth two days later without entering the station, having failed to dock		Soyuz 10
The only mission that succeeded in manning Salyut 1: launched on 6 June 1971; arrived on 7 June, and left on 30 June; the mission ended in disaster when the crew capsule depressurised during preparations for re–entry; crew members Dobrovolsky, Volkov and Patsayev are the only humans to have died in space		Soyuz 11
The USA's first space station, launched on 14 May 1973; visited by three manned missions in 1973 (the last returning to Earth in February 1974 after 84 days); fell to Earth in 1979 after increased solar activity heated the outer layers of Earth's atmosphere and increased drag. Much of the debris landed in Western Australia		Skylab
Launched 3 November 1973: flew within 5,768 kilometers (3,584 mi) of Venus on 5 Feburary 1974, and made three passes of Mercury – closest approach 327 km (203 miles) on  16 March 1975 – the last spacecraft to visit Mercury before Messenger in 2008		Mariner 10
15 July 1975: Soviet spacecraft that rendezvoused with the officially unnumbered Apollo spacecraft popularly known as Apollo 18, in a symbolic project to mark the end of the Space Race		Soyuz 19
Launched 2 July 1985: unmanned European space probe that investigated Halley's comet in 1986: named after an Italian renaissance painter, who is believed to have observed the comet in 1301 and was inspired to depict it as the Star of Bethlehem in his Adoration of the Magi		Giotto
Launched 20 August 1975: the first spacecraft to land on Mars (20 July 1976); operated until 11 November 1982, when data used to position the antenna was accidentally overwritten and contact was lost; imaged on the surface of Mars by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2006		Viking 1
Launched 19 September 1975: essentially identical to Viking 1; landed on Mars on 3 September 1976; lander turned off on 11 April 1980, when its batteries failed; orbiter worked until July 25, 1978, by which time it had orbited Mars 706 times		Viking 2
20 August 1977; passed Jupiter on 9 July 1979, Saturn on 25 August 1981, Uranus on 24 January 1986, and on 25 August 1989 passed within 3,076 miles (4,951 km) of Neptune; took photos revealing 8 moons of Neptune; the only spacecraft to have visited either of the ice giants; became the second artificial object to leave the heliosphere for interstellar space, on November 5 2018; expected to transmit data until around 2025		Voyager 2
5 September 1977: originally part of the Mariner programme (Mariner 11); flew by Jupiter on 5 March 1979, Saturn on 12 November 1980; sent back photos of its rings and moons (including Titan); continued to explore the outer solar system; the most distant man–made object from Earth, it crossed the heliopause on 25 August 2012 to become the first spacecraft to enter interstellar space; expected to transmit data until around 2025		Voyager 1

1980s

Russian space station: launched in stages and assembled in orbit, between 20 February 1986 and 23 April 1996; the first continuously inhabited long–term research station in orbit, holding the record for the longest continuous human presence in space (3,644 days) until 23 October 2010, when it was surpassed by the ISS; "deorbited" in 2001, after funding was terminated, and broke up over the South Pacific on 23 March		Mir
Launched 4 May 1989: NASA's first interplanetary probe for 11 years, and the first to be launched from the Space Shuttle; mapped the surface of Venus, and measured its gravitational field		Magellan
Launched 18 October 1989: entered Jupiter's orbit in 1995, launched a probe into its atmosphere; sent back spectacular photos of its moons in 1996		Galileo

1990s

Launched 24 April 1990 by the space shuttle Discovery; built by NASA with contributions from the European Space Agency; expected to remain in service until the 2030s, following a final servicing mission in 2009		Hubble Space Telescope
US robotic rover, landed on Mars on 4 July 1997 by the Mars Pathfinder project (launched 4 December 1996); explored until 27 September		Sojourner
The first spacecraft to orbit Saturn: a collaboration between NASA, ESA, and the Italian Space Agency (ASI); launched by NASA in 1997, entered orbit in 2004, crashed into the planet in 2017		Cassini
Orbiter launched with the above in October 1997: separated on Christmas Day 2004 and landed on Titan (Saturn's largest moon) on 14 January 2005; named after the Dutch astronomer who discovered Titan		Huygens
7 January 1998: NASA space probe that mapped the moon in search of water (among other aims); crashed into a crater near the lunar south pole on 31 July 1999, after successfully detecting the presence of water ice		Lunar Prospector
Launched by NASA on 11 December 1998 to study the climate and atmosphere of Mars; contact was lost on 23 September 1999, when it was supposed to enter orbit, due to a confusion between metric and imperial units; probably burnt up in Mars's atmosphere		Mars Climate Orbiter
Launched by NASA on 3 January 1999 to study the soil and climate of Planum Australe; contact was lost after it was supposed to have landed, on 3 December 1999 – probably because it switched off its engines prematurely, mistakenly thinking it had landed – causing it to crash–land		Mars Polar Lander
Umbrella program for the unsuccessful Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander missions		Mars Surveyor '98

2000s

Nicknames of the two satellites involved in the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) – a collaboration between NASA and the German Aerospace Centre, launched on 17 March 2002 to measure anomalies in the Earth's gravitational field		Tom & Jerry
2 June 2003: British landing spacecraft, part of the European Space Agency's 2003 Mars Express mission, which failed to confirm successful landing on Christmas Day 2003; call–sign composed by Blur, camera test card painted by Damien Hirst. Declared lost in February 2004, but in January 2015 it was announced that it had been located intact on the surface of Mars by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. It appeared that two of the four solar panels had failed to deploy, blocking the communications antenna		Beagle 2
Mars rover, launched by NASA on 10 June 2003: touched down on Mars 4 January 2004; designed to operate for 90 Mars days or sols (91.5 Earth days), it got stuck in sand in 2009 and ceased communications in 2010		Spirit
"Twin" to the above: launched 7 July 2003, touched down on Mars 25 January 2004; continued to operate until 10 June 2018; declared complete on 13 February 2019, after failing to respond to over 1,000 signals sent since August 2018; seen as one of NASA's most successful ventures		Opportunity
European Space Agency craft, launched on 2 March 2004 to study comet 6 7P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko; flew by Mars and two asteroids on the way; reached the comet on 6 August 2014 and performed the first successful landing on a comet, on 12 November 2014 (see Philae); ended its mission in September 2016 by landing on the comet		Rosetta
Robot vehicle that was landed on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, by Rosetta on 12 November 2014: named after an obelisk that was used along with the Rosetta Stone to decipher Egyptian heiroglyphics, which was in turn named after the island in the river Nile where it was discovered in 1815		Philae
Launched in 2004, to investigate Mercury – the first spacecraft to do so since Mariner 10 in 1974–5; entered orbit around Mercury in 2011; deorbited as planned, crash–landing on Mercury in 2015		Messenger
NASA mission launched on 19 January 2006 to study Pluto and its moons, and other KBOs; flew 12,500 km (7,800 mi) above the surface of Pluto on 14 July 2015; expected to fly by KBO 2014 MU69 on 1 January 2019		New Horizons
European spacecraft launched on 9 March 2008 to supply fuel etc. to the International Space Station – the first Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV); made a destructive re–entry over the Pacific Ocean on 29 September 2008		Jules Verne
Launched by NASA in 2009 (into "an Earth–trailing heliocentric orbit") to search for exoplanets; named after a Renaissance astromoner		Kepler

2010s

Launched on 5 August 2011; entered a polar orbit of Jupiter on 5 July 2016; the second spacecraft to orbit Jupiter, after Galileo		Juno
Robotic rover, launched in November 2011 as part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission: landed on Mars in August 2012, with the aims of helping to determine whether Mars could ever have supported life, determining the role of water, studying its climate and geology, and helping to prepare for human exploration		Curiosity
Entry, Descent and Landing Demonstrator Module (EDM) of the ExoMars programme – a joint mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian space agency Roscosmos, launched on 14 March 2016; intended to search for evidence of life on Mars; named after the Italian astronomer who first speculated about canals on Mars; crash–landed on Mars in October 2016		Schiaparelli
NASA mission to study the deep interior of Mars: launched in May 2018, landed on Mars in November		InSight
Joint European–Japanese mission to Mercury, launched in 2018 (due to arrive in 2025): named after the Italian engineer who worked out how to get Mariner 10 (1973–4) into a resonant orbit with the same planet		BepiColombo
Chinese mission that achieved the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon, in January 2019		Chang'e 4 chang'e

2020s

Rocket developed by Virgin Orbit, launched into orbit in January 2023 (but not the planned one), launching ten small satellites – the first ever satellite launch from UK soil		LauncherOne
Name given to the adapted Boeing 747 that the above rocket was launched from		Cosmic Girl
Cornwall town whose airport provided the launch site (named Spaceport Cornwall)		Newquay

Launched from ESA's Space Centre in French Guiana on Christmas Day 2021, by Ariane 5 (delayed from 2018) to replace the Hubble: named after the second administrator of NASA, 1961–8, who played an integral role in the Apollo program; a collaboration between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency		James Webb Space Telescope
Partially reusable crewed spacecraft used in the Artemis programme		Orion
Robotic rover launched by NASA in July 2020, to investigate "an astrobiologically relevant ancient environment" on Mars: touched down in the crater Jezero in February 2021		Perseverance

Programmes and Rockets

NASA's programme (1961–72) that succeeded in putting men on the Moon in 1969 (and on five subsequent occasions)		Apollo
European satellite–launching rockets, first deployed on 24 December 1979 from French Guiana		Ariane
Programme, led by NASA, with contributions from the European, Japanese and Canadian space agencies: intended to re–establish a human presence on the Moon; launched in 2017, launched its first mission in 2022; second (first manned) mission planned for May 2024		Artemis
SpaceX rocket that carried Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster (car) into space in February 2018		Falcon Heavy
NASA's two–man project, after Mercury and before Apollo (1961–6)		Gemini
NASA's (unmanned) programme to investigate, Mercury, Venus and Mars (1962–73)		Mariner
The USA's first manned space programme (1958–63): included Alan Shepard's first US manned spaceflight, and John Glenn's first US orbital flight; taken over from the US Air Force in its infancy by the newly–created civilian space agency NASA		Mercury
Expendable rocket used by NASA from 1966 to 1973: designed under the direction of Wernher von Braun and Arthur Rudolph, at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama (with Boeing, North American Aviation, Douglas Aircraft Company and IBM as the lead contractors); carried all Apollo flights from Apollo 4 onwards, including all the manned moon missions; also launched Skylab (May 1973); the tallest, heaviest, and most powerful rocket ever brought to operational status; still holds records for the heaviest payload launched and the largest payload capacity to low Earth orbit (LEO) – 118,000 kilograms (260,000 lb); remains the only launch vehicle to have transported human beings beyond LEO		Saturn V
Soviet equivalent of Apollo — the one that was intended to put men on the moon; the main vehicle used in missions and crew transfers to and from the ISS, after NASA retired the Space Shuttle Program in 2011; means "Union"		Soyuz
Soviet equivalent of Gemini: two or three crew — the one that Aleksey Leonov did the first spacewalk from; meaning 'Sunrise'		Voskhod
Soviet equivalent of Mercury: single crew — the one that Yuri Gagarin flew in; meaning 'East'		Vostok

Destinations

Vega 1 and 2 (1985): flew past Venus on their way to		Halley's Comet
Pioneer 10 (1972) and 11 (1973) were the first craft to fly near		Jupiter
1971: Mariner 9 orbited		Mars
Mariner 10 (1974) was, until 2008, the only craft to have visited		Mercury
Vikings 1 and 2 landed, in 1976, on		Mars
Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have visited either		Uranus or Neptune

The Apollo Programme

Note that Apollo 11 gets a section to itself (below).

Date on which fire broke out in the Apollo 1 command module during a test on the launch pad, destroying the module and killing the three crew members (see next question)			27 January 1967
The three crew members who died when Apollo 1 caught fire			Virgil 'Gus' Grissom
			Edward H. White
			Roger Chaffee
First unmanned test flight of the Saturn V rocket (November 1967)			Apollo 4
The first manned Apollo flight (October 1968; crew Wally Schirra, Walt Cunningham, Donn Eisele)			Apollo 7
The only man to fly on Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions: Mercury 7 (1962), Gemini 6A (1965), Apollo 7 (1968); died in 2007 aged 84			Wally Schirra
The first manned mission to escape the Earth's gravity, and to orbit the moon (December 1968): makes 10 lunar orbits, taking 20 hours (crew: Frank Borman, James Lovell, William Anders)			Apollo 8
First manned mission to land on the moon (July 1969)			Apollo 11
Commander of Apollo 12, and the third man to step onto the Moon (November 1969 – known as 'Pete')			Charles Conrad
The one that was aborted after the service module blew up			Apollo 13
Commander of the above; previously the Command Module pilot on Apollo 8 (the first mission to orbit the Moon)			James Lovell
Apollo 13 Command Module pilot – "OK Houston, we've had a problem here" (in the film it was Lovell, played by Tom Hanks)			John L. Swigert
Apollo 13 Lunar Module pilot			Fred W. Haise
The first Apollo mission to carry a Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) or 'Moon buggy'			Apollo 15
The last Apollo mission (7–19 December, 1972)			Apollo 17
Number of Apollo missions that landed on the moon			6 (11, 12, and 14–17)
Callsign of the Apollo 15 Command module (Commander David Scott) in honour of Captain Cook; also to the fifth and final NASA space shuttle			Endeavour
Callsign of the Apollo 17 lunar module			Challenger
The fifth, the oldest, and the earliest–born person to walk on the Moon; and the only one of the seven Mercury astronauts to do so			Alan Shepard
Hit a golf ball on the moon, in 1971
Last of 12 to step onto the moon (19 December 1972 – known as 'Jack')			Harrison H. Schmitt
Last man to walk on the moon (died in 2017, aged 82)			Gene Cernan
Apollo 17: pilot of the command module			Ronald Evans

The last three planned Apollo missions – 18, 19 and 20 – were cancelled in 1970 due to budget constraints.

The twelve men that have walked on the moon are (in chronological order):

	Neil Armstrong		Buzz Aldrin		Pete Conrad		Alan Bean
	Alan Shepard		Edgar Mitchell		David Scott		James Irwin
	John Young		Charles Duke		Eugene Cernan		Harrison Schmitt

First of the twelve to die (8 August 1991, aged 61 – of his third heart attack)

James Irwin

Apollo 11

Launched		16 July 1969 (21:10 GMT)
Landed on the Moon		21 July 1969 (03:56 GMT)
Duration of EVA		2 hrs 36 mins 40 secs
Time spent on the lunar surface by the lunar module		21 hrs 31 mins 20 secs
Splashed down in the Pacific Ocean		24 July 1969 (16:51 GMT)

Call sign of the lunar landing module		Eagle
Call sign of the command module		Columbia
Apollo 11's lunar landing site		Sea of Tranquility
The first words (addressed to Earth) spoken from the Moon – following a brief technical interchange as the lunar module landed (starting with "Contact light! OK, engine stop") spoken by Aldrin		Houston, Tranqility Base here. The Eagle has landed.
Second man on the moon		Buzz Aldrin
Pilot of the command module – left on board while Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the moon		Michael Collins
Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins were all born in		1930
Buzz Aldrin's real first name		Edwin
US president at the time of the Apollo 11 moon landing: spoke to Armstrong and Aldrin during their moonwalk – calling it "the most historic phone call ever made from the White House"		Richard Nixon

The Space Shuttle

There were six space shuttle vehicles altogether, including one (see below) that never went into space (and was never intended to).

It's worth remembering that the two that were lost both had names that began with C.

The first space shuttle – only flew on tests in the atmosphere (1977) – had no heat shield, so couldn't go into space		Enterprise
The first space shuttle to go into space (1981); disintegrated over Texas during re–entry, 2003		Columbia
1983–6: broke apart 73 seconds into its 10th flight		Challenger
Number of fatalities in each of the Space Shuttle disasters (Challenger 1986, Columbia 2003)		7
1984–2011 – launched the Hubble telescope, 1990; flew more missions than any other shuttle – 39 missions, 5,830 earth orbits, over 148 million miles, 365 days in space (final flight launched 24 Feb 2011)		Discovery
1985–2010 – made the 135th and final Space Shuttle mission (8–21 July 2011)		Atlantis
1992–2011 – built to replace Challenger		Endeavour
Total number of Space Shuttle missions (Discovery 39, Atlantis 33, Columbia 28, Endeavour 25, Challenger 10)		135

Countries

Third country to launch a spacecraft (Alouette, 29 September 1962)		Canada
Third country to launch a satellite into orbit using its own rocket (1965)		France
Third country to have one of its citizens go into space		Czechoslovakia
Third country to launch its own manned space mission (2003)		China
Third country to land a spacecraft on the Moon (2013)
First country to land a spacecraft on the far side of the moon (2019)
Fourth country to land a spacecraft on the Moon (2023)		India

Other

Cape Canaveral was known from 1963 to 1973 as		Cape Kennedy
US President, recorded a message for the gramophone record that was launched with the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1977		Jimmy Carter
The Russian state space agency, founded in 1992 (common name)		Rosaviakosmos
Word used in the English–speaking media for Chinese astronauts (from the Chinese word for space)		Taikonaut

© Haydn Thompson 2017–24