Who is the first astronauts

He served in Korea, then became a Navy test pilot in Five years later he was recruited as back-up for John Glenn. On 24 May he achieved his dream and blasted off for a five-hour mission on Mercury-Atlas 7.

However, on return to Earth a system malfunction pulled the craft to the right, causing it to overshoot the re-entry point. There were anxious moments as Carpenter manually corrected the re-entry angle, but despite an overshoot of km, he splashed down safely. Born into an aviation family in his father was a stunt pilot for his wing-walking mother! Graduating in aeronautical engineering in , he served in Korea before becoming a Navy test pilot.

He joined Mercury in the specialist area of life support systems, and on 3 October piloted Sigma 7 Mercury-Atlas 8 on a nine-hour mission to evaluate systems and equipment. But he would go on to enjoy two further missions — one with Gemini 6 in and another commanding Apollo 7 in — becoming the first person to go into space three times. His humour was evident in both: he played Jingle Bells on harmonica during Gemini 6A and became a spokesman for Actifed after catching a cold aboard Apollo 7.

The first man to make two Earth orbits, Cooper was born in and counted treasure-hunting and archaeology among his interests, as well as aviation. He joined the Army after graduating in aeronautical engineering but transferred to the Air Force as a test pilot. A colonel by the time Project Mercury recruited him in April , he piloted the final Mercury mission, Faith 7 Mercury-Atlas 9 on 15 May , to see if a manned craft could remain in space for an entire day.

Some 34 hours and 22 Earth orbits later, Cooper had proved it could, but not without some difficulties: an electrical fault on the penultimate orbit left his control system without power, and there were high levels of CO 2 in the cockpit — a problem that would return to haunt Apollo By the time he retired in after serving as back-up commander for both Gemini 12 and Apollo 10 , Cooper had clocked up hours in space. He died in at the age of Born in , Slayton was the Mercury astronaut who never was.

Joining the programme after serving as a bomber pilot, then an instructor, in World War II, a heart condition robbed him of the chance to pilot Aurora 7, with Malcolm Scott Carpenter replacing him.

Instead, he served the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions in senior but ground-based roles. Slayton was determined to regain his flight status, exercising daily, quitting smoking and cutting down on alcohol. It worked — he regained his flight status in , and finally realised his ambition as the docking pilot for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in From among these men, the selection committee was to choose six based on interviews, but seven candidates were so strong they ended up settling on that number.

Less than one month later, on May 5, astronaut Alan Shepard was successfully launched into space on a suborbital flight. On February 20, , in a major step for the U. In , 36 years after his first space flight, John Glenn traveled into space again. Glenn, then 77 years old, was part of the Space Shuttle Discovery crew, whose 9-day research mission launched on October 29, But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!

The so-called Journey of Reconciliation, which lasted Moreno, who was born in Puerto Rico in and grew up in Long Island, New York, began acting at a young age, landing her first On April 9, , just three weeks into the invasion of Iraq, U. The marriage, a private civil ceremony, took place at Windsor Guildhall, Grant, effectively ending the American Civil War. Forced to abandon the Confederate capital of Richmond, blocked from joining the surviving Confederate force The Chicago Eight, indicted on federal charges of conspiracy to incite a riot at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, plead not guilty.

Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. After a one-day trial, Billy the Kid is found guilty of murdering the Lincoln County, New Mexico, sheriff and is sentenced to hang. There is no doubt that Billy the Kid did indeed shoot the sheriff, though he had done so in the context of the bloody Lincoln County War, a battle He had been commissioned to write a series of comic travel letters for the By , Neil Armstrong and others had stood on the moon and, according to the photographer's notes on the back of this image, only two of the original seven were still active in the space program: Shepard and Donald Slayton front, second from left , both as supervisors to active astronauts.

Gus Grissom back, middle , the second American in space and the first to make a second trip, died on January 27, , when fire engulfed his Apollo 1 capsule on the launchpad—the first casualty, along with two of his crew, in the U. Project Mercury wasn't just an opening salvo, though. In October , John Glenn—by then a year-old U. All rights reserved. Share Tweet Email. Read This Next Wild parakeets have taken a liking to London. Animals Wild Cities Wild parakeets have taken a liking to London Love them or hate them, there's no denying their growing numbers have added an explosion of color to the city's streets.

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