Curated playlist
Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United States)
- Pete ConradPete Conrad stepped off the Lunar Module's ladder on the 19th of November 1969, paused on the landing pad, and jumped down onto the Moon. His first words were not the solemn kind. "Whoopee! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but…
- George H. W. BushGeorge Herbert Walker Bush carried a question with him for most of his adult life. Shot down over the Pacific in 1944, watching both crewmates die while he alone survived, he asked, as he later put it: "Why had I been spared and what did…
- Jim LovellJim Lovell flew to the Moon twice and never set foot on it. That distinction alone would make him one of the most unusual figures in the history of human spaceflight. But what truly separates Lovell from the dozen men who did walk on the…
- Clark GableClark Gable arrived in Hollywood as an extra in 1924, barely able to afford a meal, and left it more than three decades later as the man the American Film Institute ranked seventh among the greatest male screen legends of classical…
- James StewartJames Stewart gave away his only competitive Academy Award. He won Best Actor for the 1940 romantic comedy The Philadelphia Story, then handed the statuette to his father, who set it in the window of the family hardware store in Indiana,…
- Donn F. EiseleDonn Eisele spent the 27th of January 1966 recovering from shoulder surgery in a hospital. Exactly one year later, on the 27th of January 1967, three astronauts who had taken his place died in the Apollo 1 spacecraft fire. That pair of…
- James McDivittJames McDivitt flew his 145th combat mission in Korea two hours after the armistice was signed. The war was technically over. He flew anyway. That timing captures something essential about the man. He was not someone who stopped mid-task.…
- 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 human being since. More than half a century later, those footprints in the…
- Gus GrissomGus Grissom was born in Mitchell, Indiana, on the 3rd of April 1926, the son of a railroad signalman and a homemaker. His nickname came from a friend who misread "Griss" upside down on a scorecard. That accidental name would one day be…
- 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. His first words, spoken into the silence of the lunar landscape, were simply: "Beautiful view."…
- Alan ShepardAlan Bartlett Shepard Jr. awoke at 01:10 on the 5th of May 1961, ate a breakfast of orange juice, a filet mignon wrapped in bacon, and scrambled eggs, then climbed into a spacecraft perched atop a Redstone rocket. He had been strapped into…
- 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 different classes of NASA spacecraft: Gemini, the Apollo command module, the Apollo…
- Frank BormanFrank Borman received a telegram after returning from the Moon. It was from a stranger, and it said simply: "Thank you Apollo 8. You saved 1968." That single line captures what Borman's most famous mission meant to a country that had spent…
- 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 detail for a man whose identity would be shaped at every turn by the places and…
- Wally SchirraWally Schirra was the only astronaut to fly in all three of America's first crewed space programs: Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. That distinction alone would be enough to earn him a place in history. But the full arc of his life reaches…
- 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 Tranquillity, Collins flew alone in the command module Columbia, cut off from Earth for 48…
- Douglas MacArthurDouglas MacArthur was born on the 26th of January 1880 at Little Rock Barracks in Arkansas, the son of a Union Army captain who had earned the Medal of Honor at Missionary Ridge. He would go on to hold commands that no American soldier had…
- Allen Lawrence PopeAllen Lawrence Pope was born in Miami, Florida on the 20th of October 1928. He grew up as the son of a moderately prosperous fruit grower in Perrine, Florida. After graduating from the University of Florida, he entered the U.S. Air Force.…
- Deke SlaytonDeke Slayton was born on the 1st of March 1924, on a farm near Leon, Wisconsin, and by 1959 he was one of the seven most famous test pilots in America. He had flown combat missions over Nazi-occupied Europe and Imperial Japan. He had…
- Samuel C. PhillipsSamuel C. Phillips was a general who flew fighters over occupied Europe, helped design the missiles that defined the Cold War, and then ran the program that put Americans on the Moon. Not bad for the son of an electrician from…
- 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. Most people who know the Apollo program can name the men who walked on the lunar surface.…
- 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. At 14, he climbed into a Piper Cub for his first flight. That single hour in the air…