Who Are They?

The first space rendezvous, the greatest astronaut prank ever pulled, the first woman in orbit, an astounding spacewalk – get to know these less-heralded but space-breaking astronauts. Read their quotes about their historic achievements. Who made the top 10?

Skip the details: Jump to Top 10 list

You may recognize a few names or have read about their milestones. Other names might be completely fresh. But all of them have achieved something noteworthy (as if space travel isn’t noteworthy enough on its own 😲).

One more requirement: They must be human. There were a number of animal pioneers who paved the way for manned space flight. I’ve highlighted one of them, HAM the space chimp, in my honorable mention section.

The Astronauts

These are listed in chronological order of their first trip into space.

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Wally Schirra – Schirra is likely the most well-known astronaut on this BANAL.

His signature achievement happened on the Gemini 6 mission. He achieved the first successful space rendezvous aboard Gemini 6, locking orbit with the Gemini 7 spacecraft carrying Jim Lovell, of Apollo 13 fame. They managed to establish a position 1 foot 😲 apart, and hold it for 20 minutes.

I love 🤣 his quote where he compares Gemini 6 to the Russian claim of a successful space rendezvous:

[The Russian rendezvous] was a passing glance—the equivalent of a male walking down a busy main street with plenty of traffic whizzing by and he spots a cute girl walking on the other side. He’s going ‘Hey wait’ but she’s gone. That’s a passing glance, not a rendezvous. Now if that same male can cut across all that traffic and nibble on that girl’s ear, now that’s a rendezvous!

Wally Schirra

Prior to Gemini, Wally also traveled into space on the pioneering Mercury project. He orbited the earth in the third such Mercury flight, where he demonstrated manually positioning and maneuvering his spacecraft using a reaction control system.

After Gemini, project Apollo launched, and Wally flew on Apollo 7, making him the only astronaut to fly missions on Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. He also co-hosted CBS’s coverage of Apollo 11’s moon landing.

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Valentina Tereshkova – A Russian woman, Valentina was the first woman in space, flying aboard her space capsule, Vostok 6. She orbited the earth 48 times.

If women can be railroad workers in Russia, why can’t they fly in space?

Valentina Tereshkova

Interesting Story – Valentina missed her landing target due to technical problems. She had to make in-flight adjustments to make it safely back to earth, but ended up landing near the Kazakhstan-Mongolia-China border.

She accepted a dinner invitation from villagers who found her and helped her out of her spacesuit, a violation of Soviet instructions to undergo medical tests first. Imagine the villagers’ surprise to see her! 😲

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Michael Collins – The other astronaut on Apollo 11, the first time man stepped on the moon. Collins piloted Columbia around the moon while Aldrin and Armstrong did their thing.

I knew I was alone in a way that no earthling has ever been before.

Michael Collins, conveying his feelings from the dark side of the moon in Columbia, alone, while Armstrong and Aldrin were on the moon’s surface

Prior to his flight on Apollo 11, Collins was an important member of Project Gemini, flying into space on the Gemini 10 mission.

I’m finding it fascinating reading about these lesser known missions, and following NASA’s progression from earthbound to the moon. But it’s not conducive to finishing a writing project, so moving on for now…

I really believe that if the political leaders of the world could see their planet from a distance of, let’s say 100,000 miles, their outlook would be fundamentally changed. The all-important border would be invisible, that noisy argument suddenly silenced. The tiny globe would continue to turn, serenely ignoring its subdivisions, presenting a unified facade that would cry out for unified understanding, for homogeneous treatment. The earth must become as it appears: blue and white, not capitalist or communist; blue and white, not rich or poor; blue and white, not envious or envied.

Michael Collins

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Owen Garriott – Astronaut on Skylab, the original space station, NASA’s venture that followed the moon landings. Garriott pulled off arguably the greatest prank in the history of astronaut pranks – the stowaway prank.

Garriott’s wife, Helen Garriott, pre-recorded her voice, with pauses, over the radio, to make it sound like she was responding to Houston. Below is Owen’s recollection of her hilarious “conversation” that he initiated from Skylab:

Helen's voice: "Hello, Houston, this is Skylab."
Capcom in Houston, Bob Crippen: "Well, hello, Skylab. Who is this?"
Helen's voice: "Hi, there, Bob, this is Helen."
Crippen: "What are you doing up there?"
Helen's voice: "Well, we just came up to bring the boys a fresh meal, or a hot cooked meal. They haven't had one for quite a while. We thought they might enjoy that."
Crippen: "How did you get there?"
Helen's voice: "Oh, we just flew up. We've been looking at those forest fires that they have all over California. It's a beautiful sight from up here. Well, I see the boys are floating in my direction. I've got to get off the line. I'm not supposed to be talking to you. See you later, Bob."

Help on the ground – Bob Crippen, who later became a shuttle astronaut and the director of the Kennedy Space Center, was in on it. He read his lines perfectly in response to the transmission from Skylab. I’ve read multiple accounts that claim Bob Crippen was stunned to hear a female voice. Those accounts are wrong – Crippen played his part beautifully!

Did it work? Garriott relates that 20 years later, he talked to a member of the ground crew who still had no idea what had happened. Now that’s a successful prank!

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Dale Gardner – Performed the first ever space salvage, retrieving two malfunctioning satellites during a spacewalk, following Discovery’s launch of two new satellites.

Gardner made history after the salvage with his iconic photograph, holding up a “For Sale” sign from outside Discovery’s cargo bay.

Gardner also flew on the first ever night launch of a space shuttle, with first-time African-American astronaut Guy Bluford.

“I looked back at engine ignition and darn near blinded myself!”

Dale Gardner describing his view of the first night time shuttle launch on Challenger STS-8

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Guion “Guy” Bluford – The first African-American astronaut, Bluford flew on the first ever mission that launched and landed at night. Bluford and the crew operated a Canadian-built robot arm and conducted several biophysiological experiments.

I felt an awesome responsibility, and I took the responsibility very seriously, of being a role model and opening another door to black Americans, but the important thing is not that I am black, but that I did a good job as a scientist and an astronaut. There will be black astronauts flying in later missions … and they, too, will be people who excel, not simply who are black … who can ably represent their people, their communities, their country.

Guy Bluford

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Bruce McCandless II – Performed the first untethered spacewalk. McCandless drifted as far as 300 feet away. He used thrusters on a futuristic jet pack to propel himself through space.

You have to see the video to believe it (Bruce floats away at the 2:15 mark):

It may have been one small step for Neil, but it’s a heck of a leap for me.

Bruce McCandless II

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Kathy Sullivan – First American woman to perform a spacewalk.

As a young engineer, she was inspired by the Apollo 11 moon landing when she realized how much engineering was involved in making it happen. She pursued this dream, and was chosen by NASA as one of the first group of 6 women to be an astronaut.

One of her crew’s biggest accomplishments involved the launch, rescue, and repair of the Hubble Telescope.

After her NASA career, Sullivan also became the first woman to travel via sub to the deepest known point in the ocean, Challenger Deep. This made her the first person to travel both into outer space and to Challenger Deep.

I’m happy to report that no amount of prior study or training can fully prepare anybody for the awe and wonder this inspires.

KathySullivan

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Jake Garn – First civilian in space

Garn, a senator from Utah, served on a committee that oversaw NASA’s activities and expenses. A former military pilot, he pitched that he should go along for a ride to make sure America was getting it’s money’s worth.

Personally, I’m not sure this was necessary, but give Garn props for ingenuity – he engineered a way to hitch a ride on the space shuttle – congressional oversight. Brilliant! 🧠

Dubious honor – Garn’s other role on the flight was to serve as the subject for medical experiments on space motion sickness. He filled his role admirably! 🤣 The space sickness Garn experienced during the journey was so severe that a scale for space sickness was jokingly based on him, where “one Garn” is the highest possible level of sickness (source Wikipedia)

Even a politician doesn’t have the vocabulary to describe the beauty of this planet

Jake Garn

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Mae C. Jemison – The first African American woman in outer space.

The brilliant Mae Jemison was way more than a pretty face. And even more than an astronaut with a historic first.

She was also a scientist, having earned a college degree in engineering from Stanford, which she first attended at age 16. She became a physician, after earning a doctorate in medicine at Cornell. And she was a humanitarian, serving in the peace corps as a doctor in places like Africa.

As if that wasn’t enough, Jemison flew on Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992, carrying out a whopping 44 science experiments with her crew. (Source – Discover Magazine article: 11 Female Astronauts).

Never limit yourself because of others’ limited imagination; never limit others because of your own limited imagination.

Mae Jemison

More great quotes from Jemison (I couldn’t pick just one):

• “I always knew I’d go to space.”
• “Once I got into space, I was feeling very comfortable in the universe. I felt like I had a right to be anywhere in this universe, that I belonged here as much as any speck of stardust, any comet, any planet.”
• “When God made the color purple, God was just showing off.“
• “Greatness can be captured in one word: lifestyle. Life is God’s gift to you, style is what you make of it.”
• “We look at science as something very elite, which only a few people can learn. That’s just not true. You just have to start early and give kids a foundation. Kids live up, or down, to expectations.”
• “When I’m asked about the relevance to Black people of what I do, I take that as an affront. It presupposes that Black people have never been involved in exploring the heavens, but this is not so. Ancient African empires – Mali, Songhai, Egypt – had scientists, astronomers. The fact is that space and its resources belong to all of us, not to any one group.”

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Honorable Mention

This has been my most difficult top 10 list. You could easily make an argument for large changes in the list, and I had to leave out many worthy candidates, some of which are listed below:

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HAM, the Space Chimp – On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American human in space. But he was preceded by several animals, including HAM, who was the first NASA astronaut to perform cognitive functions in space. Responding to stimuli as trained, he pulled the correct levers while in space, proving that a primate’s brain could function outside the earth’s atmosphere.

HAM doesn’t meet one criteria for my top 10 list – being human. He was, however, a pioneer astronaut, paving the way for future NASA space missions.

HAM survived his flight, even though there was a partial loss of air pressure while in space, but disaster was averted because of the pressurized capsule encasing Ham.

After splashdown, water flooded the capsule and if the rescue helicopter had not arrived when it did, Ham might have drowned. This picture shows HAM receiving a congratulatory handshake after his return.

HAM had no comment about his historic flight.

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Jerry Ross – No, he’s not a hall-of-fame wide receiver from the 49ers. Ross is tied for the record for the most space flights, at seven.

Watching the first moon landing inspired Jerry to become an astronaut. He was mesmerized by it on his television. His girlfriend took black and white photos of the screen.

On every flight, I felt like I was a kid in a candy shop.

Jerry Ross

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Kalpana Chawla – First Indian astronaut.

Everyone remembers Sally Ride as the first American woman in space. Everyone remembers Christa McAuliffe, the brave teacher who died in the Challenger disaster. But few remember Chawla, who also perished aboard Challenger.

The mission was her second, so Kalpana did successfully reach space, the first person of Indian origin to do so. An exceptional engineer for NASA, Chawla researched vertical take-off and landing techniques being pursued today by companies like SpaceX.

Do something because you really want to do it. If you’re doing it just for the goal and don’t enjoy the path, then I think you’re cheating yourself.

Kalpana Chawla

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Gene Cernan – The last man to walk on the moon, during Apollo 17.

We leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace, and hope for all mankind

Gene Cernan, as he stepped off the moon for the last time.

To make the list, an astronaut can’t be too famous, but you may have heard of some of them. And they needed to have achieved something unique, or daring.

This list is incredibly subjective, so let me know where and why I got it wrong.