Curated category
1969 in spaceflight
- James McDivittJames Alton McDivitt Jr. was born on the 10th of June 1929, in Chicago, Illinois. He grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where he earned the rank of Tenderfoot…
- Gene CernanGene Cernan stepped off the lunar surface on the 14th of December 1972, climbed the ladder of the Apollo 17 lunar module, and has not been followed by any…
- Buzz AldrinBuzz Aldrin set foot on the Moon at 03:15:16 on the 21st of July 1969 (UTC), nineteen minutes after Neil Armstrong first touched the surface.
- Apollo Lunar ModuleThe Apollo Lunar Module is the only crewed vehicle in history to land somewhere beyond Earth. That fact alone is worth sitting with.
- Neil ArmstrongNeil Armstrong set his left boot on the lunar surface at 02:56 UTC on the 21st of July 1969, and said seven words that an estimated 530 million people heard…
- John Young (astronaut)John Watts Young flew in space six times, walked on the Moon, and commanded the first Space Shuttle mission. No other astronaut in history flew in four…
- David ScottDavid Randolph Scott was born on the 6th of June 1932 at Randolph Field, near San Antonio, Texas. His middle name came directly from that base, a fitting…
- Michael Collins (astronaut)Michael Collins orbited the Moon thirty times in July 1969 and never set foot on it. While Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the Sea of…
- Alan BeanAlan LaVern Bean was born on the 15th of March, 1932, in Wheeler, Texas, a small town in the northeastern corner of the Texas Panhandle.
- Saturn VSaturn V stands 363 feet tall, taller than the Statue of Liberty by a wide margin, and when its five F-1 engines fired together during a test at what is now…
- Richard F. Gordon Jr.Richard Francis Gordon Jr. was born in Seattle, Washington, on the 5th of October 1929, and he died 88 years later having orbited the Moon 45 times.
- Rusty SchweickartRusty Schweickart spent five minutes tethered outside his spacecraft, suspended above the Earth, and felt something shift inside him.
- Thomas P. StaffordThomas Stafford was born on the 17th of September 1930, in Weatherford, Oklahoma, a small town that would later name an airport and a museum after him.
- Soyuz (rocket family)Soyuz holds the record for the most launches in the history of spaceflight. That single fact, buried in technical documents and launch logs, is extraordinary…