NASA

This astronaut gave their life in the pursuit of space exploration.

Memorial

This astronaut crossed the Kármán Line (100 km), the internationally accepted boundary of space.

Crossed Kármán Line

This astronaut was the first American to perform a spacewalk.

First American to Spacewalk

Edward H. White II, born on November 14, 1930, in San Antonio, Texas, was a U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, test pilot, and NASA astronaut. A graduate of West Point with a Master’s in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Michigan, he flew over 3,000 hours, mostly in jets. Selected by NASA in 1962, White made history as the first American to perform a spacewalk during the Gemini 4 mission in June 1965. He was later assigned to the first crewed Apollo mission (AS-204). Tragically, he died in the Apollo 1 spacecraft fire on January 27, 1967, at Kennedy Space Center. He was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor and numerous other honors. Courtesy of NASA.

Gemini 4

Gemini 4 saw the first U.S. spacewalk, was the first U.S. mission to last multiple days, and made an attempt to rendezvous and fly in formation with the rocket's second stage in orbit. The rendezvous was unsuccessful and revealed the counter-intuitive elements of orbital mechanics, where pointing your craft at a target and firing your engines doesn't always move you towards the target. The rendezvous was called off to focus on the more-important spacewalk, which was a success.

Gemini was a two-person spacecraft designed to prove technologies and procedures for the Apollo lunar landings. Crews proved rendezvous and docking as well as transfer from one ship to another via spacewalk were possible. Gemini demonstrated that humans could live and work in space for the length of time needed for a lunar flight.

Gemini

Edward H. White II

United States of America

Apollo 9

The first flight of the full Apollo lunar spacecraft, Apollo 9 marked the first piloted flight of the lunar lander and the first time the Apollo spacecraft docked to the lunar lander and extracted it from the Saturn V rocket. The crew spent 10 days testing the lunar lander and moonwalk life support packs. They also practiced emergency transfer of a lunar lander crew to the Apollo Command Module and use of the lunar lander to control and provide propulsion to the Apollo Command and Service Modules in case of emergency.

The main Apollo spacecraft was a Command and Service Module designed to take three astronauts to and from the Moon’s orbit and provide access to the lunar lander during missions. After the Moon program ended, Apollo spacecraft flew three crews to the Skylab space station and performed the historic joint U.S.-Soviet mission in 1975.

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