Famous Astronauts from the United States
- Neil Armstrong, a name etched in the annals of space exploration, was born on August 5, 1930, in Wapakoneta, Ohio. His journey to becoming the first man to step foot on the moon began in childhood when he developed a deep fascination for aviation. This passion led him to earn his student pilot's license even before he could drive a car. He further honed his skills as a pilot while pursuing a degree in aeronautical engineering from Purdue University, after which he served in the Korean War as a naval aviator, where he flew 78 combat missions. Armstrong's space odyssey began in earnest when he joined NASA's astronaut program in 1962, following his stint as a test pilot for the agency's predecessor, NACA. He commanded Gemini 8 in 1966, which marked the first successful docking of two vehicles in space. However, he cemented his place in history as the mission commander of Apollo 11, launched in July 1969. During this mission, Armstrong famously declared, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," as he descended the ladder of the lunar module to imprint the first human footprint on the moon's dusty surface. Despite his monumental achievement, Armstrong remained humble and elusive to the public eye post-retirement from NASA in 1971. He joined the faculty at the University of Cincinnati as a professor of aerospace engineering and continued his commitment to advancing aeronautics until his retirement from academia in 1979. Armstrong passed away in August 2012, but his legacy continues to inspire future generations. He was not just an astronaut; he was a trailblazer who pushed the boundaries of human potential, proving that the sky was not the limit but rather the beginning of a new frontier.
- Birthplace: USA, Ohio
- Buzz Aldrin, born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr., is an American astronaut and mechanical engineer who made significant contributions to the history of space exploration. Born on January 20, 1930, in Montclair, New Jersey, Aldrin graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and later earned a doctorate in astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Aldrin's name came into prominence when he joined NASA's Astronaut Group 3 in 1963. His first spaceflight occurred in 1966 aboard Gemini 12, where he set a record for extravehicular activity and effectively proved that astronauts could work outside spacecraft. However, it was his second spaceflight that would etch his name in gold in the annals of history. As a member of the Apollo 11 mission, Aldrin became the second person to walk on the moon on July 20, 1969, following mission commander Neil Armstrong. This monumental achievement was watched by millions around the globe and stands as a pivotal moment in human space exploration. Post-NASA career, Aldrin continued to advocate for space exploration and has written numerous books and papers on the subject. He proposed a special spacecraft cycling system, now known as the Aldrin cycler, aiming to provide regular, cost-effective travel to Mars. To this day, Aldrin has remained a prominent figure in the public eye, often speaking at events and appearing in popular culture as an icon of human adventure and discovery. His life serves as a testament to the power of human ambition and the limitless possibilities of exploration.
- Birthplace: USA, Glen Ridge, New Jersey
- Sally Kristen Ride (May 26, 1951 – July 23, 2012) was an American astronaut and physicist. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA in 1978 and became the first American woman in space in 1983. Ride was the third woman in space overall, after USSR cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova (1963) and Svetlana Savitskaya (1982). Ride remains the youngest American astronaut to have traveled to space, having done so at the age of 32. After flying twice on the Orbiter Challenger, she left NASA in 1987. Ride worked for two years at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control, then at the University of California, San Diego as a professor of physics, primarily researching nonlinear optics and Thomson scattering. She served on the committees that investigated the Challenger and Columbia Space Shuttle disasters, the only person to participate in both. Ride died of pancreatic cancer on July 23, 2012.
- Birthplace: Los Angeles, USA, California
- Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr. (June 2, 1930 – July 8, 1999) (Captain, USN), was an American NASA astronaut, aeronautical engineer, naval officer and aviator, test pilot, and during the Apollo 12 mission became the third man to walk on the Moon. Conrad was selected in NASA's second astronaut class. He set an eight-day space endurance record along with his Command Pilot Gordon Cooper on his first spaceflight, the Gemini 5 mission. Conrad also commanded the Gemini 11 mission. He became the third human to walk on the moon during the Apollo 12 mission. After Apollo, he commanded Skylab 2, the first crewed Skylab mission. On the mission, he and his crewmates repaired significant launch damage to the Skylab space station. For this, President Jimmy Carter awarded him the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978. After he retired from NASA in 1973, he became a vice president of American Television and Communications Company. He went on to work for McDonnell Douglas, as a vice president. During his tenure, he served as vice president of marketing, senior vice president of marketing, staff vice president of international business development, and vice president of project development. Conrad died on July 8, 1999, from internal injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident.
- Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom (April 3, 1926 – January 27, 1967) was one of the seven original National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Project Mercury astronauts, and the first of the Mercury Seven to die. He was also a Project Gemini and an Apollo program astronaut. Grissom was the second American to fly in space, and the first member of the NASA Astronaut Corps to fly in space twice. In addition, Grissom was a World War II and Korean War veteran, U.S. Air Force test pilot, and a mechanical engineer. He was a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the Air Medal with an oak leaf cluster, a two-time recipient of the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, and, posthumously, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. During World War II, Grissom enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces as an aviation cadet. After his discharge from military service, Grissom enrolled at Purdue University, graduating with a bachelor's in mechanical engineering in 1950. He reenlisted in the U.S. Air Force, earning his pilot's wings in 1951, and flew 100 combat missions during the Korean War. After returning to the United States, Grissom was reassigned to work as a flight instructor at Bryan Air Force Base in Texas. He attended the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology for a year, earning a bachelor's degree in aeromechanics, and received his test pilot training at Edwards Air Force Base in California before his assignment as a test pilot at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. Selected as one of the Mercury Seven astronauts, Grissom was the pilot of Mercury-Redstone 4 (Liberty Bell 7), the second American suborbital flight, on July 21, 1961. At the end of the flight, the capsule's hatch blew off prematurely after it landed in the Atlantic Ocean. Grissom was picked up by recovery helicopters, but the blown hatch caused the craft to fill with water and sink. His next flight was in the Project Gemini program as command pilot for Gemini 3 (Molly Brown), which was a successful three-orbit mission on March 23, 1965. Grissom, commander of AS-204 (Apollo 1), along with his fellow astronauts Ed White and Roger B. Chaffee, died on January 27, 1967, during a pre-launch test for the Apollo 1 mission at Cape Kennedy, Florida.
- Birthplace: USA, Mitchell, Indiana
- Ellen O. Ochoa (born May 10, 1958) is an American engineer, former astronaut and former Director of the Johnson Space Center. Ochoa became director of the center upon the retirement of the previous director, Michael Coats, on December 31, 2012. In 1993 Ochoa became the first Hispanic woman to go to space when she served on a nine-day mission aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery.
- Birthplace: Los Angeles, California
- Rear Admiral Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998) was an American astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot, and businessman. In 1961 he became the first American to travel into space, and in 1971 he walked on the Moon. A graduate of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Shepard saw action with the surface navy during World War II. He became a naval aviator in 1946, and a test pilot in 1950. He was selected as one of the original NASA Mercury Seven astronauts in 1959, and in May 1961 he made the first crewed Project Mercury flight, MR-3, in a spacecraft he named Freedom 7. His craft entered space, but was not capable of achieving orbit. He became the second person, and the first American, to travel into space, and the first space traveler to manually control the orientation of his craft. In the final stages of Project Mercury, Shepard was scheduled to pilot the Mercury-Atlas 10 (MA-10), which was planned as a three-day mission. He named Mercury Spacecraft 15B Freedom 7 II in honor of his first spacecraft, but the mission was canceled. Shepard was designated as the commander of the first crewed Project Gemini mission, but was grounded in 1963 due to Ménière's disease, an inner-ear ailment that caused episodes of extreme dizziness and nausea. This was surgically corrected in 1969, and in 1971, Shepard commanded the Apollo 14 mission, piloting the Apollo Lunar Module Antares to the most accurate landing of the Apollo missions. At age 47, he became the fifth, the oldest, and the earliest-born person to walk on the Moon, and the only one of the Mercury Seven astronauts to do so. During the mission, he hit two golf balls on the lunar surface. Shepard was Chief of the Astronaut Office from November 1963 to July 1969 (the approximate period of his grounding), and from June 1971 until his retirement from the United States Navy and NASA on August 1, 1974. He was promoted to rear admiral on August 25, 1971, the first astronaut to reach that rank.
- Birthplace: New Hampshire, USA, Derry
- A genuine hero in the annals of the American space program, James Lovell served as pilot for NASA's Gemini 7 mission and commander of Gemini 12 before facing his greatest challenge as commander of Apollo 13, which he returned safely to Earth after a system failure which nearly claimed the lives of all aboard the craft. Lovell's heroics on the Apollo 13 mission, which later served as the basis for Ron Howard's Oscar-winning 1994 film of the same name, helped to preserve Lovell's status as one of the greatest figures in the history of the space program, of which he had been a key part since 1962. Over the course of his decade-long career as an astronaut, Lovell logged a record-breaking number of hours in space while participating in some of the most historic events in manned space flight. But it was his command of Apollo 13, and his actions that defied the odds to return the craft and crew safely to Earth, that truly minted James Lovell as one of America's bravest exploration heroes.
- Birthplace: Cleveland, Ohio, USA
- William Reid Pogue (January 23, 1930 – March 3, 2014), (Col, USAF), was an American astronaut, U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, and test pilot who was also an accomplished teacher, public speaker and author. Born and educated in Oklahoma, Pogue graduated from college and enlisted in the United States Air Force, in which he served for 24 years. He flew combat during the Korean War, and with the elite USAF Thunderbirds. He served as a flight instructor and mathematics professor, and was a versatile test pilot, including two years in an exchange with the RAF (UK). Colonel Pogue was an Air Force instructor when accepted into NASA in 1966. His astronaut career included one orbital mission, as pilot of the last crew of Skylab. The crew set a duration record (84 days) that was unbroken in NASA for over 20 years, and in orbit they conducted dozens of research experiments. The mission was also noted for a dispute with ground control over schedule management that news media named “The Skylab Mutiny”. Pogue retired from both the USAF and NASA a few months after he returned from Skylab. Over the next 30 plus years he taught, lectured, consulted, and wrote about aviation and aeronautics, in the US and abroad. He died in 2014, age 84, survived by three children, four stepsons, and his third wife.
- Birthplace: Okemah, Oklahoma
- Mae Carol Jemison (born October 17, 1956) is an American engineer, physician and former NASA astronaut. She became the first black woman to travel in space when she served as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Jemison joined NASA's astronaut corps in 1987 and was selected to serve for the STS-47 mission, during which she orbited the Earth for nearly eight days on September 12–20, 1992. Born in Alabama and raised in Chicago, Jemison graduated from Stanford University with degrees in chemical engineering as well as African and African-American studies. She then earned her medical degree from Cornell University. Jemison was a doctor for the Peace Corps in Liberia and Sierra Leone from 1983 until 1985 and worked as a general practitioner. In pursuit of becoming an astronaut she applied to NASA. Jemison left NASA in 1993 and founded a technology research company. She later formed a non-profit educational foundation and through the foundation is the principal of the 100 Year Starship project funded by DARPA. Jemison also wrote several books for children and appeared on television several times, including in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. She holds several honorary doctorates and has been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame and the International Space Hall of Fame.
- Birthplace: Decatur, Alabama, USA
- Franklin Story Musgrave, M.D. (born August 19, 1935) is an American physician and a retired NASA astronaut. He is a public speaker and consultant to both Disney's Imagineering group and Applied Minds in California. In 1996 he became only the second astronaut to fly on six spaceflights, and he is the most formally educated astronaut with six academic degrees. Musgrave is the only astronaut to fly aboard all five Space Shuttles.
- Birthplace: Boston, USA, Massachusetts
- Judith Arlene Resnik (; April 5, 1949 – January 28, 1986) was an American electrical engineer, software engineer, biomedical engineer, pilot and NASA astronaut who died when the Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed during the launch of mission STS-51-L. Resnik was the second American woman in space and the fourth woman in space worldwide, logging 145 hours in orbit. She was also the first Jewish American in space and the first Jewish woman of any nationality in space. The IEEE Judith Resnik Award for space engineering is named in her honor. Initially planning to be a concert pianist, Resnik turned down a place at the Juilliard School of Music, choosing instead to study at Carnegie Mellon University after being 1 of only 16 women in the history of the United States to have attained a perfect score on the SAT exam at the time. She went on to graduate with a degree in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon before attaining a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland. Recognised while still a child for her "intellectual brilliance", Resnik went on to work for RCA as an engineer on NASA missile and radar projects, was a senior systems engineer for Xerox Corporation and published research on special purpose integrated circuitry before she was recruited by NASA to the astronaut program as a mission specialist at age 28. While training on the astronaut program, she developed software and operating procedures for NASA missions. She was also a pilot and made research contributions to biomedical engineering as a research fellow of biomedical engineering at the National Institutes of Health.
- Birthplace: Akron, Ohio
- Guion Stewart Bluford Jr., Ph.D. (born November 22, 1942), (Col, USAF, Ret.), is an American aerospace engineer, retired U.S. Air Force officer and fighter pilot, and former NASA astronaut, who is the first African American and the second person of African descent to go to space. Before becoming an astronaut, he was an officer in the U.S. Air Force, where he remained while assigned to NASA, rising to the rank of colonel. He participated in four Space Shuttle flights between 1983 and 1992. In 1983, as a member of the crew of the Orbiter Challenger on the mission STS-8, he became the first African American in space as well as the second person of African ancestry in space, after Cuban cosmonaut Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez.
- Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Ronald Erwin McNair (October 21, 1950 – January 28, 1986) was an American NASA astronaut and physicist. He died during the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger on mission STS-51-L, in which he was serving as one of three mission specialists in a crew of seven. In 1976, he received a Ph.D. degree in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the guidance of Michael Feld, becoming nationally recognized for his work in the field of laser physics. In 1978, McNair was selected as one of thirty-five applicants from a pool of ten thousand for the NASA astronaut program. He flew on STS-41-B aboard Challenger from February 3 to February 11, 1984, as a mission specialist becoming the second African American and the first Bahá'í to fly in space. Following this mission, McNair was selected for STS-51-L, which launched on January 28, 1986, and was subsequently killed when Challenger disintegrated nine miles above the Atlantic Ocean 73 seconds after liftoff.In 1971, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering Physics, magna cum laude, from the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, North Carolina.After graduation from MIT (receiving four honorary doctorates, a score of fellowships and commendations while achieving a 6th degree black belt in taekwondo), he became a staff physicist at the Hughes Research Lab in Malibu, California. McNair was a member of the Bahá'í Faith.He was survived by his wife, Cheryl, daughter Joy Charey McNair and son Reginald Ervin McNair. McNair was a member of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity.
- Birthplace: Lake City, South Carolina
- Eileen Marie Collins (born November 19, 1956) is a retired NASA astronaut and a retired United States Air Force colonel. A former military instructor and test pilot, Collins was the first female pilot and first female commander of a Space Shuttle. She was awarded several medals for her work. Colonel Collins has logged 38 days 8 hours and 20 minutes in outer space. Collins retired on May 1, 2006, to pursue private interests, including service as a board member of USAA.
- Birthplace: Elmira, New York
- Kalpana Chawla (March 17, 1962 – February 1, 2003) was an American astronaut, engineer, and the first woman of Indian descent to go to space. She first flew on Space Shuttle Columbia in 1997 as a mission specialist and primary robotic arm operator. In 2003, Chawla was one of the seven crew members who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster when the spacecraft disintegrated during its re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. Chawla was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, and several streets, universities and institutions have been named in her honor. The late astronaut is recognized as a national hero in India.
- Birthplace: Karnal, India
- Carlos Ismael Noriega (born 1959) is a Peruvian and U.S. citizen, NASA employee, a former NASA astronaut and a retired U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant colonel.
- Birthplace: Lima, Peru
- Frank Frederick Borman II (March 14, 1928 - November 7, 2023) was an American retired United States Air Force (USAF) colonel, aeronautical engineer, NASA astronaut, test pilot, and businessman. He was the commander of Apollo 8, the first mission to fly around the Moon, and together with crewmates Jim Lovell and William Anders, became the first of 24 humans to do so, for which he was awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
- Birthplace: Gary, Indiana
- Peggy Annette Whitson (born February 9, 1960) is an American biochemistry researcher, retired NASA astronaut, and former NASA Chief Astronaut. Her first space mission was in 2002, with an extended stay aboard the International Space Station as a member of Expedition 5. Her second mission launched October 10, 2007, as the first female commander of the ISS with Expedition 16. She was on her third long-duration space flight and was the commander of the International Space Station for Expedition 51, before handing over command to Fyodor Yurchikhin on June 1, 2017. The flight of Space Shuttle mission STS-120, commanded by astronaut Pam Melroy, was the first time that two female mission commanders have been in orbit at the same time. After completion of her eighth EVA in March 2017, Whitson now holds the records for the oldest woman spacewalker, and the record for total spacewalks by a woman, which was broken by herself again after a ninth and tenth EVA in May 2017, surpassing Sunita Williams, who has completed 7. Whitson's cumulative EVA time is 60 hours, 21 minutes, which places her in 4th place for total EVA time. She is also the oldest female astronaut ever in space, at age 57.In 2017, Whitson became the first female astronaut to command the International Space Station twice. On April 24, 2017, Whitson broke the record for most total days spent in space by any NASA astronaut, at more than 534 days.In June 2017, Whitson broke the record for the longest single space flight by a woman which had previously been held by Samantha Cristoforetti at 199 days, 16 hours. Whitson spent 289 days in orbit before returning aboard Soyuz MS-04.Whitson returned to earth on September 3, 2017 having accrued a total of 665 days in space over the course of her career; the equivalent of a hypothetical round trip to Mars, making her NASA's most experienced astronaut to date. This total was more time in space than any other woman worldwide and any other American. Her Soyuz capsule landed in Kazakhstan shortly after sunrise Sunday—Saturday night back in the U.S.On June 15, 2018, Whitson announced her retirement from the agency, effective on the same day.
- Birthplace: Mount Ayr, Iowa, USA
- Walter Marty Schirra Jr. (, March 12, 1923 – May 3, 2007) (Captain, USN, Ret.) was an American naval aviator and NASA astronaut. In 1959, he became one of the original seven astronauts chosen for Project Mercury, which was the United States' first effort to put human beings into space. On October 3, 1962, he flew the six-orbit, nine-hour, Mercury-Atlas 8 mission, in a spacecraft he nicknamed Sigma 7. At the time of his mission in Sigma 7, Schirra became the fifth American and ninth human to travel into space. In the two-man Gemini program, he achieved the first space rendezvous, station-keeping his Gemini 6A spacecraft within 1 foot (30 cm) of the sister Gemini 7 spacecraft in December 1965. In October 1968, he commanded Apollo 7, an 11-day low Earth orbit shakedown test of the three-man Apollo Command/Service Module and the first crewed launch for the Apollo program. He was the first astronaut to go into space three times, and the only astronaut to have flown in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. In total, Schirra logged 295 hours and 15 minutes in space. After Apollo 7, he retired as a captain from the U.S. Navy as well as from NASA, subsequently becoming a consultant to CBS News in the network's coverage of following Apollo flights. Schirra joined Walter Cronkite as co-anchor for all seven of NASA's Moon landing missions.
- Birthplace: Hackensack, New Jersey
- Franklin Ramón Chang Díaz (April 5, 1950) is a Costa Rican American mechanical engineer, physicist, former NASA astronaut. He is the founder and current CEO of Ad Astra Rocket Company as well as a member of Cummins' board of directors. He became an American citizen in 1977. He is of Costa Rican Spanish (maternal side) and Chinese (paternal side) descent. He is a veteran of seven Space Shuttle missions, tying the record, as of 2018 for the most spaceflights (a record set by Jerry L. Ross). He was the third Latin American, but the first Latin American immigrant NASA Astronaut selected to go into space. Chang Díaz is a member of the NASA Astronaut Hall of Fame.
- Birthplace: San José, Costa Rica
- Lisa Marie Nowak (née Caputo, born May 10, 1963) is an American former naval flight officer and NASA astronaut. Born in Washington, D.C., she was selected by NASA in 1996 and qualified as a mission specialist in robotics. Nowak flew aboard Space Shuttle Discovery during the STS-121 mission in July 2006, where she was responsible for operating the robotic arms of the shuttle and the International Space Station. On February 5, 2007, she was arrested in Orlando, Florida, and subsequently charged with the attempted kidnapping of U.S. Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman, who was romantically involved with astronaut William Oefelein. Nowak was released on bail, and initially pleaded not guilty to the charges, which included attempted kidnapping, burglary with assault, and battery. Her assignment to the space agency as an astronaut was terminated by NASA effective March 8, 2007. On November 10, 2009, Nowak agreed to a plea deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to charges of felony burglary of a car and misdemeanor battery. Nowak remained a Navy captain until August 2010, when a naval board of inquiry, composed of three admirals, voted unanimously to reduce Nowak in rank to commander and to discharge her from the Navy under other than honorable conditions.
- Birthplace: Washington, D.C.
- Anousheh Ansari (Persian: Anuŝe Ansāri; née Raissyan; born September 12, 1966) is an Iranian-American engineer and co-founder and chairwoman of Prodea Systems. Her previous business accomplishments include serving as co-founder and CEO of Telecom Technologies, Inc. (TTI). The Ansari family is also the title sponsor of the Ansari X Prize. On September 18, 2006, a few days after her 40th birthday, she became the first Iranian in space. Ansari was the fourth overall self-funded space tourist, and the first self-funded woman to fly to the International Space Station. Her memoir, My Dream of Stars, co-written with Homer Hickam, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2010.
- Birthplace: Mashhad, Iran
- Harrison Hagan "Jack" Schmitt (born July 3, 1935) is an American geologist, retired NASA astronaut, university professor, former U.S. senator from New Mexico, and, as a crew member of Apollo 17, the most recent living person to have walked on the Moon. In December 1972, as one of the crew on board Apollo 17, Schmitt became the first member of NASA's first scientist-astronaut group to fly in space. As Apollo 17 was the last of the Apollo missions, he also became the twelfth and second-youngest person to set foot on the Moon, and the second-to-last person to step off of the Moon (he boarded the Lunar Module shortly before commander Eugene Cernan). Schmitt also remains the only professional scientist to have flown beyond low Earth orbit and to have visited the Moon. He was influential within the community of geologists supporting the Apollo program and, before starting his own preparations for an Apollo mission, had been one of the scientists training those Apollo astronauts chosen to visit the lunar surface. Schmitt resigned from NASA in August 1975 in order to run for election to the United States Senate as a member from New Mexico. As the Republican candidate in the 1976 election, he defeated the two-term Democratic incumbent Joseph Montoya. In 1982, Schmitt was defeated by Democrat Jeff Bingaman.
- Birthplace: USA, New Mexico, Santa Rita
- Leroy Gordon "Gordo" Cooper Jr. (March 6, 1927 – October 4, 2004) was an American aerospace engineer, test pilot, United States Air Force pilot, and the youngest of the seven original astronauts in Project Mercury, the first manned space program of the United States. Cooper learned to fly as a child, and after service in the United States Marine Corps during World War II, he was commissioned into the United States Air Force in 1949. After service as a fighter pilot, he qualified as a test pilot in 1956, and was selected as an astronaut in 1959. In 1963 Cooper piloted the longest and last Mercury spaceflight, Mercury-Atlas 9. During that 34-hour mission he became the first American to spend an entire day in space, the first to sleep in space, and the last American launched on an entirely solo orbital mission. Despite a series of severe equipment failures, he managed to successfully complete the mission under manual control, guiding his spacecraft, which he named Faith 7, to a splashdown just 4 miles (6.4 km) ahead of the recovery ship. Cooper became the first astronaut to make a second orbital flight when he flew as Command Pilot of Gemini 5 in 1965. Along with Pilot Pete Conrad, he set a new space endurance record by traveling 3,312,993 miles (5,331,745 km) in 190 hours and 56 minutes—just short of eight days—showing that astronauts could survive in space for the length of time necessary to go from the Earth to the Moon and back. Cooper liked to race cars and boats, and entered the $28,000 Salton City 500 miles (800 km) boat race, and the Southwest Championship Drag Boat races in 1965, and the 1967 Orange Bowl Regatta with fire fighter Red Adair. In 1968, he entered the 24 Hours of Daytona, but NASA management ordered him to withdraw due to the dangers involved. After serving as backup commander of the Apollo 10 mission, he was superseded by Alan Shepard, and retired from NASA and the Air Force with the rank of colonel in 1971.
- Birthplace: Shawnee, Oklahoma
- Sunita Pandya Lyn Williams (born September 19, 1965) is an American astronaut and United States Navy officer of Indo-Slovenian descent. She formerly held the records for total spacewalks by a woman (seven) and most spacewalk time for a woman (50 hours, 40 minutes). Williams was assigned to the International Space Station as a member of Expedition 14 and Expedition 15. In 2012, she served as a flight engineer on Expedition 32 and then commander of Expedition 33.
- Birthplace: Euclid, Ohio
- Joseph Albert Walker (February 20, 1921 – June 8, 1966) (Capt, USAF) was an American World War II pilot, experimental physicist, NASA test pilot, and astronaut. He was one of twelve pilots who flew the North American X-15, an experimental spaceplane jointly operated by the Air Force and NASA. In 1963 Walker made three flights above 50 miles, thereby qualifying as an astronaut according to the United States definition of the boundary of space. The latter two, X-15 Flights 90 and 91, also surpassed the Kármán line, the internationally accepted boundary of 100 kilometers (62.14 miles). Making the latter flights immediately after the completion of the Mercury and Vostok programs, Walker became the first person to fly to space twice. He was the only X-15 pilot to fly above 100 km during the program.
- Birthplace: Washington, Pennsylvania
- Jeffrey Shears "Bones" Ashby (born June 16, 1954) is an American mechanical engineer, and former naval officer and aviator, test pilot and NASA astronaut, a veteran of three Space Shuttle missions. He is a retired Captain in the U.S. Navy. He currently works for Blue Origin as chief of mission assurance.
- Birthplace: Dallas, Texas
- Gregory Errol Chamitoff (born 6 August 1962 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada) is an engineer and former NASA astronaut. He has been to space twice, spending 6 months aboard the ISS across Expedition 17 and 18 in 2008, and another 15 days as part of STS-134 in 2011. STS-134 was the last of Space Shuttle Endeavour which delivered the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer and completed the US Orbital Segment.
- Birthplace: Montreal, Canada
- Robert Henry Lawrence Jr. (October 2, 1935 – December 8, 1967) was a United States Air Force officer and the first African-American astronaut.
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
- Edwin Jacob "Jake" Garn (born October 12, 1932) is an American astronaut, politician, and member of the Republican Party, who served as a U.S. Senator representing Utah from 1974 to 1993. Garn became the first sitting member of the United States Congress to fly in space when he flew aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery as a Payload Specialist during NASA mission STS-51-D (April 12–19, 1985).
- Birthplace: Richfield, Utah, USA
- John Herschel Glenn Jr. (July 18, 1921 – December 8, 2016) was a United States Marine Corps aviator, engineer, astronaut, businessman, and politician. He was the first American to orbit the Earth, circling it three times in 1962. Following his retirement from NASA, he served from 1974 to 1999 as a Democratic United States Senator from Ohio, and in 1998 flew into space again at age 77. Before joining NASA, Glenn was a distinguished fighter pilot in World War II, China and Korea. He shot down three MiG-15s, and was awarded six Distinguished Flying Crosses and eighteen Air Medals. In 1957, he made the first supersonic transcontinental flight across the United States. His on-board camera took the first continuous, panoramic photograph of the United States. He was one of the Mercury Seven, military test pilots selected in 1959 by NASA as the nation's first astronauts. On February 20, 1962, Glenn flew the Friendship 7 mission, becoming the first American to orbit the Earth, and the fifth person and third American in space. He received the NASA Distinguished Service Medal in 1962, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978, was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1990, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. Glenn resigned from NASA in January 1964. A member of the Democratic Party, Glenn was first elected to the Senate in 1974 and served for 24 years, until January 1999. In 1998, while still a sitting senator, Glenn flew on Space Shuttle Discovery's STS-95 mission, making him, at age 77, the oldest person to fly in space and the only person to fly in both the Mercury and Space Shuttle programs. Glenn, both the oldest and the last surviving member of the Mercury Seven, died at the age of 95 in 2016. He is survived by his wife Annie Glenn, an advocate for people with disabilities and communication disorders.
- Birthplace: USA, Cambridge Township, Cambridge, Ohio
- Ronnie Walter Cunningham (born March 16, 1932), (Col, USMCR, Ret.) is a retired American astronaut. In 1968, he was a Lunar Module Pilot on the Apollo 7 mission. He was NASA's third civilian astronaut (after Neil Armstrong and Elliot See), and has also been a fighter pilot, physicist, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and author of The All-American Boys.
- Birthplace: Creston, Iowa
- William Alison Anders (October 17, 1933 – June 7, 2024) was an American United States Air Force (USAF) major general, electrical engineer, nuclear engineer, NASA astronaut, and businessman. In December 1968, as a crew member of Apollo 8, he was one of the first three people to leave low Earth orbit and travel to the Moon. Along with fellow astronauts Frank Borman and Jim Lovell, Anders circled the Moon ten times, and broadcast live images and commentary back to Earth. During one of the mission's lunar orbits he photographed the iconic image, Earthrise. Apart from his professional and military careers, Anders was the U.S. Ambassador to Norway from 1976 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford.
- Birthplace: British Hong Kong
- Garrett Erin Reisman (; born February 10, 1968) is an American engineer and former NASA astronaut. He was a backup crew member for Expedition 15 and joined Expedition 16 aboard the International Space Station for a short time before becoming a member of Expedition 17. He returned to Earth on June 14, 2008 on board STS-124 on Space Shuttle Discovery. He was a member of the STS-132 mission that traveled to the International Space Station aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis from May 14 to 26, 2010. He is currently the Director of Space Operations at SpaceX and a Professor of Astronautics Practice at the University of Southern California's Viterbi School of Engineering.
- Birthplace: Morristown, New Jersey
- Barbara Radding Morgan (born November 28, 1951) is an American teacher and a former NASA astronaut. She participated in the Teacher in Space program as backup to Christa McAuliffe for the 1986 ill-fated STS-51-L mission of the Space Shuttle Challenger. She then trained as a Mission Specialist, and flew on STS-118 in August 2007.
- Birthplace: Fresno, California, USA
- James Hansen Newman, Ph.D. (born October 16, 1956) is an American physicist and a former NASA astronaut who flew on four Space Shuttle missions.
- Birthplace: Federated States of Micronesia
- Edward George Gibson (born November 8, 1936) is a former NASA astronaut, pilot, engineer, and physicist. Before becoming an astronaut, Gibson graduated from the University of Rochester and the California Institute of Technology. He became a research assistant in jet propulsion while completing his studies, and eventually became a research scientist for Philco Corporation until joining NASA in 1965. Gibson was selected as part of NASA Astronaut Group 4, the first group of scientist-astronauts. He served on the support crew of Apollo 12, the second Moon landing mission, before working on the development of the Skylab space station. In 1973–74, Gibson made his only flight into space as science pilot aboard Skylab 4, the third and final crewed flight to Skylab. He, along with Commander Gerald Carr and Pilot William Pogue, spent just over 84 days in space. Gibson resigned from NASA in December 1974, but returned in 1977 to preside over the selection of scientist-astronaut candidates. Gibson retired from NASA for the last time in October, 1982.
- Birthplace: Buffalo, New York
- Thomas Patten Stafford (born September 17, 1930; Lt Gen, USAF, Ret.) is an American former Air Force officer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut. After graduating from the United States Naval Academy, Stafford commissioned in the United States Air Force, flying the F-86 Sabre prior becoming a test pilot. He was selected to become an astronaut in 1962, and flew aboard Gemini 6A and Gemini 9. In 1969, Stafford was the Commander of Apollo 10, the second crewed mission to orbit the Moon and the first to fly a Lunar Module in lunar orbit, descending to an altitude of nine miles. In 1975, Stafford was the commander of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project flight, the first joint U.S.-Soviet space mission. Stafford was a brigadier general at the time of the mission, becoming the first general officer to fly in space, as well as the first member of his Naval Academy class to pin on the first, second, and third stars of a general officer. He made six rendezvous in space and logged 507 hours of space flight. He has flown over 120 different types of fixed wing and rotary aircraft and three different types of spacecraft.
- Birthplace: Weatherford, Oklahoma
- Shannon Matilda Wells Lucid (born January 14, 1943) is an American biochemist and a retired NASA astronaut. At one time, she held the record for the longest duration stay in space by an American, as well as by a woman. She has flown in space five times including a prolonged mission aboard the Mir space station in 1996; she is the only American woman to have served aboard Mir. In 2002, Discover magazine recognized Lucid as one of the 50 most important women in science.
- Birthplace: China, Shanghai
- Stephen Kern Robinson (born October 26, 1955, in Sacramento, California) is a former NASA astronaut.
- Birthplace: Sacramento, California
- Russell Louis "Rusty" Schweickart (also Schweikart; born October 25, 1935) is an American aeronautical engineer, and a former NASA astronaut, research scientist, U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, as well as a former business executive and government executive. Schweickart was selected in 1963 for NASA's third astronaut group. He was the Lunar Module Pilot on the 1969 Apollo 9 mission, the first crewed flight test of the lunar module, on which he performed the first in-space test of the portable life support system used by the Apollo astronauts who walked on the Moon. As backup Commander of the first crewed Skylab mission in 1973, he was responsible for developing the hardware and procedures used by the first crew to perform critical in-flight repairs of the Skylab station. After Skylab, he served for a time as Director of User Affairs in NASA's Office of Applications. Schweickart left NASA in 1977 to serve for two years as California Governor Jerry Brown's assistant for science and technology, then was appointed by Brown to California's Energy Commission for five and a half years, serving as chairman for three.In 1984–85 he co-founded the Association of Space Explorers and later in 2002 co-founded the B612 Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to defending Earth from asteroid impacts, along with fellow former astronaut Ed Lu and two planetary scientists. He served for a period as its chair before becoming its chair emeritus.
- Birthplace: Neptune Township, New Jersey
- Gregory Hammond "Greg" Olsen (born April 20, 1945) is an American entrepreneur, engineer and scientist who, in October 2005, became the third private citizen to make a self-funded trip to the International Space Station with the company Space Adventures. Olsen was the co-founder and chairman of Sensors Unlimited Inc., a company developing optoelectronic devices such as sensitive near-infrared (NIR) and shortwave-infrared (SWIR) cameras. One of Sensors Unlimited's major customers is NASA. Currently, Olsen is President of GHO Ventures, LLC, in Princeton, New Jersey, where he manages his angel investments, South African winery, Montana ranch, and performs numerous speaking engagements to encourage children – especially minority and female children – to consider careers in science or engineering. He also is a physics professor at Rider University.
- Birthplace: New York City, New York
- William McMichael "Bill" Shepherd (born July 26, 1949, Capt. USN, Ret.) is an American former Navy SEAL, aerospace, ocean, and mechanical engineer, and NASA astronaut who served as Commander of Expedition 1, the first crew on the International Space Station. He is also a recipient of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
- Birthplace: Oak Ridge, Tennessee
- Stephen Nathaniel Frick (born September 30, 1964) is an American astronaut and a veteran of two Space Shuttle missions. Raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Frick graduated from Pine-Richland High School in 1982, earned a degree in aerospace engineering from the United States Naval Academy in 1986, was commissioned as a United States Navy officer, and trained as a F/A-18 fighter pilot. Stationed aboard the carrier USS Saratoga, he flew combat missions during the Gulf War and then earned a master's degree in aeronautical engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in 1994.Frick was selected as a NASA astronaut candidate in 1996 and was trained as a Space Shuttle pilot. He piloted mission STS-110, a docking mission with the International Space Station.In July 2006, Frick was assigned to command the crew of STS-122. The 12-day mission delivered the European Space Agency's Columbus laboratory and returned Expedition 16 Flight Engineer Daniel M. Tani to Earth. The mission launched February 7, 2008, and touched down February 20, 2008. NASA announced his retirement in July 2015.
- Birthplace: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Sandra Hall Magnus (born October 30, 1964) is an American engineer and a former NASA astronaut. She returned to Earth with the crew of STS-119 Discovery on March 28, 2009, after having spent 134 days in orbit. She was assigned to the crew of STS-135, the final mission of the Space Shuttle. She is also a licensed amateur radio operator with the call sign KE5FYE. From 2012 until 2018 Magnus was the executive director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
- Birthplace: Belleville, Illinois
- Robert Lee Curbeam, Jr. (born March 5, 1962) is a former NASA astronaut and captain in the United States Navy.Curbeam graduated from Woodlawn High School, Baltimore County, Maryland in 1980. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the United States Naval Academy in 1984, a Master of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in 1990, and a master's degree in Astronautical Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in 1991. He is a member of the U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association and the Association of Old Crows. Curbeam was named Fighter Wing One Radar Intercept Officer of the Year in 1989 and received the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School Best Developmental Thesis (DT-II) Award. He currently holds the record for the most spacewalks during a single spaceflight. During the STS-116 mission, Curbeam completed four spacewalks.
- Birthplace: Baltimore, Maryland
- James Benson "Jim" Irwin (March 17, 1930 – August 8, 1991) (Col, USAF) was an American astronaut, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and a United States Air Force pilot. He served as Apollo Lunar Module pilot for Apollo 15, the fourth human lunar landing. He was the eighth person to walk on the Moon and the first, and youngest, of those astronauts to die.
- Birthplace: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- George Driver "Pinky" Nelson (born (1950-07-13)July 13, 1950) is an American physicist, astronomer, science educator, and a former NASA astronaut.
- Birthplace: Charles City, Iowa
- Tamara Elizabeth "Tammy" Jernigan, Ph.D. (born May 7, 1959, in Chattanooga, Tennessee) is an American scientist and former NASA astronaut and a veteran of five shuttle missions. She currently serves as Deputy Principal Associate Director in the Weapons and Complex Integration (WCI) organization at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory..
- Birthplace: Chattanooga, Tennessee
- Richard Allen Garriott de Cayeux (né Garriott; July 4, 1961) is an English-American video-game developer and entrepreneur. He is also known by his alter egos "Lord British" in the game series Ultima and "General British" in Tabula Rasa. Garriott, who is the son of NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, was originally a game designer and programmer, and is now involved in a number of aspects of computer-game development. On October 12, 2008, Richard flew aboard the Soyuz TMA-13 mission to the International Space Station as a private astronaut, returning 12 days later aboard Soyuz TMA-12. He became the second astronaut, and first from the U.S., to have a parent who was also a space traveler. Garriott founded a new video-game-development company in 2009, called Portalarium. His current project is Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues where his primary role is as CEO and Creative Director. In 2011, Garriott married Laetitia de Cayeux. Both changed their last names to Garriott de Cayeux.
- Birthplace: England, Cambridge
- Colin Michael Foale (born 6 January 1957) is a British-American astrophysicist and former NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of six space missions, and is the only NASA astronaut to have flown extended missions aboard both Mir and the International Space Station. He was the first Briton to perform a space walk, and until 17 April 2008, he held the record for most time spent in space by a US citizen: 374 days, 11 hours, 19 minutes. He still holds the cumulative-time-in-space record for a UK citizen.
- Birthplace: Louth, United Kingdom
- Ellison Shoji Onizuka (エリソン・ショージ・オニヅカ, 鬼塚 承次, Onizuka Shōji, June 24, 1946 – January 28, 1986) was an American astronaut and engineer from Kealakekua, Hawaii, who successfully flew into space with the Space Shuttle Discovery on STS-51-C. He died in the destruction of the Space Shuttle Challenger, on which he was serving as Mission Specialist for mission STS-51-L. He was the first Asian American and the first person of Japanese ancestry to reach space.
- Birthplace: Kealakekua, Hawaii
- Robert Lee "Bobby" Satcher Jr. (born September 22, 1965) is an American physician, chemical engineer, and NASA astronaut. He became the first orthopedic surgeon in space during STS-129. He participated in 2 spacewalks during STS-129, accumulating 12hrs 19min of EVA time. Satcher holds two doctorates (Ph.D., M.D.) and has received numerous awards and honors as a surgeon and engineer. He is married and has two children. Bobby Satcher enjoys running, scuba diving, and reading.
- Birthplace: Hampton
- James Patrick "Mash" Dutton, Jr. (born November 20, 1968) is a NASA astronaut pilot of the Class of 2004 (NASA Group 19), and a former test pilot in the US Air Force with the rank of colonel.
- Birthplace: Eugene, Oregon
- Clayton Conrad Anderson (born February 23, 1959) is a retired NASA astronaut. Launched on STS-117, he replaced Sunita Williams on June 10, 2007 as a member of the ISS Expedition 15 crew.
- Birthplace: Omaha, Nebraska
- Stuart Allen "Stu" Roosa (August 16, 1933 – December 12, 1994), Col., USAF, was an American aeronautical engineer, United States Air Force pilot, test pilot, and NASA astronaut, who was the Command Module Pilot for the Apollo 14 mission. The mission lasted from January 31 to February 9, 1971 and was the third mission to land astronauts (Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell) on the Moon. While Shepard and Mitchell spent two days on the lunar surface, Roosa conducted experiments from orbit in the Command Module Kitty Hawk. He was one of 24 men to travel to the Moon, which he orbited 34 times.
- Birthplace: Durango, Colorado
- Catherine Grace "Cady" Coleman (born December 14, 1960) is an American chemist, a former United States Air Force officer, and a retired NASA astronaut. She is a veteran of two Space Shuttle missions, and departed the International Space Station on May 23, 2011, as a crew member of Expedition 27 after logging 159 days in space.
- Birthplace: Charleston, South Carolina
- Sharon Christa McAuliffe (née Corrigan; September 2, 1948 – January 28, 1986) was an American teacher and astronaut from Concord, New Hampshire, and one of the seven crew members killed in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. She received her bachelor's degree in education and history from Framingham State College in 1970 and also a master's degree in education, supervision and administration from Bowie State University in 1978. She took a teaching position as a social studies teacher at Concord High School in New Hampshire in 1983. In 1985, she was selected from more than 11,000 applicants to participate in the NASA Teacher in Space Project and was scheduled to become the first teacher in space. As a member of mission STS-51-L, she was planning to conduct experiments and teach two lessons from Space Shuttle Challenger. On January 28, 1986, the shuttle broke apart 73 seconds after launch. After her death, schools and scholarships were named in her honor, and in 2004 she was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
- Birthplace: Boston, USA, Massachusetts
- Elliot McKay See Jr. (July 23, 1927 – February 28, 1966) was an American engineer, naval aviator, test pilot, and NASA astronaut. See received an appointment to the United States Merchant Marine Academy in 1945. He graduated in 1949 with a Bachelor of Science degree in marine engineering and a United States Navy Reserve commission, and joined the Aircraft Gas Turbine Division of General Electric as an engineer. He was called to active duty as a naval aviator during the Korean War, and flew Grumman F9F Panther fighters with Fighter Squadron 144 (VF-144) from the aircraft carrier USS Randolph in the Mediterranean, and USS Boxer in the Western Pacific. He married Marilyn Denahy in 1954, and they had three children. See rejoined General Electric (GE) in 1956 as a flight test engineer after his tour of duty, and became a group leader and experimental test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base, where he flew the latest jet aircraft with GE engines. He also obtained a Master of Science degree in aeronautical engineering from UCLA. Selected in NASA's second group of astronauts in 1962, See was the prime command pilot for what would have been his first space flight, Gemini 9. He was killed along with Charles Bassett, his Gemini 9 crewmate, in a NASA jet crash at the St. Louis McDonnell Aircraft plant, where they were to undergo two weeks of space rendezvous simulator training.
- Birthplace: Dallas, Texas
- Tracy Caldwell Dyson (born Tracy Ellen Caldwell; August 14, 1969) is an American chemist and NASA astronaut. Caldwell Dyson was a Mission Specialist on Space Shuttle Endeavour flight STS-118 in August 2007. She was part of the Expedition 24 crew on the International Space Station between April 4, 2010 and September 25, 2010. She has completed three spacewalks, logging more than 22 hrs of EVA including work to replace a malfunctioning coolant pump.
- Birthplace: Arcadia, California
- Stephanie Diana Wilson (born September 27, 1966) is an American engineer and a NASA astronaut. She flew to space onboard three Space Shuttle missions, and is the second African American woman to go into space, after Mae Jemison. Her 42 days in space are the most of any African American astronaut, male or female.
- Birthplace: Boston, Massachusetts
- Manley Lanier "Sonny" Carter Jr., M.D. (August 15, 1947 – April 5, 1991), (Capt, USN), was an American chemist, physician, professional soccer player, naval officer and aviator, test pilot, and NASA astronaut who flew on STS-33.
- Birthplace: Macon, Georgia
- James Dougal Adrianus "Ox" van Hoften, Ph.D. (born June 11, 1944) is an American civil and hydraulic engineer, retired U.S. Navy officer and aviator, and a former astronaut for NASA.
- Birthplace: Fresno, California
- Kevin Anthony Ford (born July 7, 1960) is a retired United States Air Force Colonel and a NASA astronaut. Ford has received a number of special honors and awards, some of which are the Air Force Meritorious Service Medal, Air Force Commendation Medal, Aerial Achievement Medal and the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal. Ford has also logged more than 5,000 flying hours and also holds FAA commercial certificates for airplanes, helicopters and gliders. Ford has served in many roles at NASA since his selection in July 2000. The roles include as a Capsule Communicator or CAPCOM. He was also the Director Of Operations at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia from January 2004 to January 2005. He was pilot of STS-128 and Flight Engineer 2 of Soyuz TMA-06M from October 23, 2012 to March 16, 2013.
- Birthplace: Portland, Indiana
- Bruce McCandless II (June 8, 1937 – December 21, 2017) was a U.S. naval officer and aviator, electrical engineer, and NASA astronaut. In 1984, during the first of his two Space Shuttle missions, he made the first untethered free flight by using the Manned Maneuvering Unit.
- Birthplace: Boston, Massachusetts
- Millie Elizabeth Hughes-Fulford (born December 21, 1945) is an American medical investigator, molecular biologist and former NASA astronaut who flew aboard a NASA Space Shuttle mission as a Payload Specialist.
- Birthplace: Mineral Wells, Texas
- Douglas Harry "Wheels" Wheelock (born May 5, 1960) is an American engineer and astronaut. He has flown in space twice, logging 178 days on the Space Shuttle, International Space Station, and Russian Soyuz. On July 12, 2011, Wheelock announced that he would be returning to active duty with the United States Army in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.
- Birthplace: Binghamton, New York
- David Mathieson "Dave" Walker (May 20, 1944 – April 23, 2001), (Capt, USN), was an American naval officer and aviator, fighter pilot, test pilot, and a former NASA astronaut. He flew aboard four Space Shuttle missions in the 1980s and 1990s.
- Birthplace: Columbus, Georgia
- Jon Andrew McBride (born August 14, 1943), (Capt, USN, Ret.), is a retired American naval officer and aviator, fighter pilot, test pilot, aeronautical engineer, and a former NASA astronaut.
- Birthplace: Charleston, West Virginia
- Brian Duffy (born June 20, 1953, Boston, Massachusetts) is a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and a former NASA astronaut. He flew aboard four Space Shuttle missions.
- Birthplace: Boston, Massachusetts
- Eric Allen Boe (born October 1, 1964) is a United States Air Force fighter pilot Colonel, test pilot, a Civil Air Patrol member, and a NASA astronaut. He flew as the pilot of Space Shuttle missions STS-126 and STS-133.
- Birthplace: Miami, Florida
- Francis Richard Scobee (May 19, 1939 – January 28, 1986) was an American pilot, engineer and astronaut. He was killed while he was commanding the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986, which suffered catastrophic booster failure during launch of the STS-51-L mission.He held a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering. He was a reciprocating engine mechanic for the United States Air Force and served as a combat aviator in the Vietnam War. In April 1984, he piloted Challenger mission STS-41-C, which successfully deployed one satellite and repaired another. Selected for NASA Astronaut Corps in January 1978, Scobee completed his training in August 1979. While awaiting his first orbital spaceflight mission, he served as an instructor pilot for the Shuttle's 747 carrier aircraft.
- Birthplace: Cle Elum, Washington
- Shannon Walker (born 4 June 1965 in Houston, Texas) is an American scientist and a NASA astronaut whose first space mission was Expedition 24 on the International Space Station with take-off on 15 June 2010.On March 2017, NASA announced that Walker will train as backup for Joseph Acaba for Expedition 53/54 to the International Space Station.
- Birthplace: Houston, Texas
- Richard Noel "Dick" Richards (born August 24, 1946), (Capt, USN, Ret.), is a retired American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, chemical engineer, and a former NASA astronaut. He flew aboard four Space Shuttle missions in the 1980s and 1990s.
- Birthplace: Key West, Florida
- Terry Jonathan "T.J." Hart (Pittsburgh, October 27, 1946 ) is an American mechanical and electrical engineer, a retired United States Air Force lieutenant colonel and pilot, and former NASA astronaut.
- Birthplace: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Thomas David Jones (born January 22, 1955) is a former United States astronaut. He was selected to the astronaut corps in 1990 and completed four space shuttle flights before retiring in 2001. He flew on STS-59 and STS-68 in 1994, STS-80 in 1996 and STS-98 in 2001. His total mission time was 53 days 48 minutes. He works as a planetary scientist, space operations consultant, astronaut speaker, and author.
- Birthplace: Baltimore, Maryland
- David Alexander Wolf (born August 23, 1956) is an American astronaut, medical doctor and electrical engineer. Wolf has been to space four times. Three of his spaceflights were short-duration Space Shuttle missions, the first of which was STS-58 in 1993, and his most recent spaceflight was STS-127 in 2009. Wolf also took part in a long-duration mission aboard the Russian space station Mir which lasted 128 days, and occurred during Mir EO-24. He was brought to Mir aboard STS-86 in September 1997, and landed aboard STS-89 in January 1998. In total Wolf has logged more than 4,040 hours in space. He is also a veteran of 7 spacewalks totaling 41hrs 17min in both Russian and American spacesuits.
- Birthplace: Indianapolis, Indiana
- Curtis Lee "Curt" Brown Jr. (born March 11, 1956) is a former NASA astronaut and retired United States Air Force colonel.
- Birthplace: Elizabethtown, North Carolina
- Alfred Merrill "Al" Worden (born February 7, 1932), (Col, USAF, Ret.), is an American astronaut and engineer who was the Command Module Pilot for the Apollo 15 lunar mission in 1971. One of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon, he orbited it 74 times in the Command Module Endeavour.
- Birthplace: Jackson, Michigan
- Fred Wallace Haise Jr. ( HAYZ; born November 14, 1933) is an American former NASA astronaut, fighter pilot with the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Air Force and test pilot. He is one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon, having flown as Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 13. He was to have been the sixth person to land and walk on the Moon, but the Apollo 13 mission was aborted before lunar landing. He went on to fly Space Shuttle Approach and Landing Tests in 1977, and retired from NASA in 1979.
- Birthplace: USA, Mississippi, Biloxi
- Alan LaVern Bean (March 15, 1932 – May 26, 2018) was an American naval officer and aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut; he was the fourth person to walk on the Moon. He was selected to become an astronaut by NASA in 1963 as part of Astronaut Group 3. He made his first flight into space aboard Apollo 12, the second crewed mission to land on the Moon, at age 37 in November 1969. He made his second and final flight into space on the Skylab 3 mission in 1973, the second crewed mission to the Skylab space station. After retiring from the United States Navy in 1975 and NASA in 1981, he pursued his interest in painting, depicting various space-related scenes and documenting his own experiences in space as well as that of his fellow Apollo program astronauts. He was the last living crew member of Apollo 12.
- Birthplace: Texas, USA, Wheeler
- Joseph Michael "Joe" Acabá (born May 17, 1967) is an American educator, hydrogeologist, and NASA astronaut. In May 2004 he became the first person of Puerto Rican heritage to be named as a NASA astronaut candidate, when he was selected as a member of NASA Astronaut Training Group 19. He completed his training on February 10, 2006 and was assigned to STS-119, which flew from March 15 to March 28, 2009 to deliver the final set of solar arrays to the International Space Station. Acabá served as a Flight Engineer aboard the International Space Station, having launched on May 15, 2012. He arrived at the space station on May 17 and returned to Earth on September 17, 2012. Acaba returned to the International Space Station in 2017 as a member of Expedition 53/54.
- Birthplace: Inglewood, Los Angeles, California
- William Cameron "Willie" McCool (September 23, 1961 – February 1, 2003), (Cmdr, USN), was an American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, aeronautical engineer, and NASA astronaut, who was the pilot of Space Shuttle Columbia mission STS-107. He and the rest of the crew of STS-107 were killed when Columbia disintegrated during re-entry into the atmosphere. He was the youngest male member of the crew. McCool was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
- Birthplace: San Diego, California
- Malcolm Scott Carpenter (May 1, 1925 – October 10, 2013), (Commander, USN), was an American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, aeronautical engineer, astronaut, and aquanaut. He was one of the Mercury Seven astronauts selected for NASA's Project Mercury in April 1959. Carpenter was the second American (after John Glenn) to orbit the Earth and the fourth American in space, after Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, and Glenn. Commissioned into the U.S. Navy in 1949, Carpenter became a naval aviator, flying a Lockheed P-2 Neptune with Patrol Squadron 6 (VP-6) on reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare missions along the coasts of Russia and China during the Korean War and the Cold War. In 1954, he attended the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland in 1954 and became a test pilot. In 1958 he was named Air Intelligence Officer of the USS Hornet, which was then in dry dock at the Bremerton Navy Yard. The following year, Carpenter was selected as one of the Mercury Seven astronauts. He was backup to Glenn during the latter's Mercury Atlas 6 orbital mission. Carpenter flew the next mission, Mercury-Atlas 7, in the spacecraft he named Aurora 7. Due to a series of malfunctions, the spacecraft landed 250 miles (400 km) downrange from its intended splashdown point, but both pilot and spacecraft were retrieved. Carpenter obtained permission from NASA to take a leave of absence to join the U.S. Navy SEALAB project as an aquanaut. During training he suffered injuries which grounded him, making him unavailable for further spaceflights. In 1965, he spent 28 days living on the ocean floor off the coast of California as part of SEALAB II. He returned to NASA as Executive Assistant to the Director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, then joined the Navy's Deep Submergence Systems Project in 1967 as Director of Aquanaut Operations for SEALAB III. He retired from NASA in 1967, and from the Navy in 1969.
- Birthplace: Boulder, Colorado, USA
- Bonnie Jeanne Dunbar (born March 3, 1949) is a former NASA astronaut. She retired from NASA in September 2005 then served as president and CEO of The Museum of Flight until April 2010. From January 2013 - December 2015, Dr. Dunbar lead the University of Houston's STEM Center (science, technology, engineering and math) and was a faculty member in the Cullen College of Engineering. Currently, she is a professor of aerospace engineering at Texas A&M University and serves as Director of the Institute for Engineering Education and Innovation (IEEI), a joint entity in the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) and the Dwight Look College of Engineering at Texas A&M University.
- Birthplace: Sunnyside, Washington
- Timothy Lennart "Tim" Kopra (born April 9, 1963) is an engineer, a Colonel in the United States Army and a retired NASA astronaut. He served aboard the International Space Station as a flight engineer for Expedition 20, returning to Earth aboard Space Shuttle Discovery on the STS-128 mission on September 11, 2009. He returned to the ISS for the second time in December 2015, as part of Expedition 46 and as the Commander of 47.
- Birthplace: Austin, Texas
- William Benjamin "Bill" Lenoir, Ph.D. (March 14, 1939 – August 26, 2010) was an American electrical engineer and a NASA astronaut.
- Birthplace: Miami, Florida
- Michael López-Alegría (born May 30, 1958) is an American astronaut; a veteran of three Space Shuttle missions and one International Space Station mission. He is known for having performed ten spacewalks so far in his career, presently holding the second longest all-time EVA duration record and having the third longest spaceflight of any American at the length of 215 days; this time was spent on board the ISS from September 18, 2006 to April 21, 2007. Married to Daria Robinson of Geneva, Switzerland.
- Birthplace: Madrid, Spain
- James Francis Reilly II (born March 18, 1954) is an American geologist and a former NASA astronaut. He flew on three space shuttle missions: STS-89, STS-104 and STS-117. Reilly is the current Director of the United States Geological Survey.
- Birthplace: Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho
- Dominic Anthony "Tony" Antonelli (born August 23, 1967) is a retired NASA astronaut. Antonelli was born in Detroit, Michigan, but was raised in both Indiana and North Carolina. He is married and has two children.
- Birthplace: Detroit, Michigan
- Charles Joseph "Charlie" Camarda (born May 8, 1952 in Queens, New York) is an American engineer and a NASA astronaut who flew his first mission into space on board the Space Shuttle mission STS-114. He served as Senior Advisor for Engineering Development at NASA Langley Research Center.
- Birthplace: New York City, New York
- Colonel Gary Eugene Payton, USAF, (born June 20, 1948) is an American astronaut, and worked as a payload specialist for NASA. Payton flew on the STS-51-C mission aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in January 1985 which launched and returned to land at the Kennedy Space Center, in Florida. STS-51C was the first dedicated Space Shuttle Department of Defense mission. Payton traveled over 1.2 million miles in 48 Earth orbits, and logged more than 73 hours in space.He is currently Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Schriever Chair in Astronautics at the United States Air Force Academy, teaching Astronautical Engineering.
- Birthplace: Rock Island, Illinois
- Michael John "Bloomer" Bloomfield (born March 16, 1959) is an American former astronaut and a veteran of three Space Shuttle missions.
- Birthplace: Flint, Michigan
- Mark Charles Lee USAF Colonel, (born August 14, 1952) is a former NASA astronaut who flew on four Space Shuttle missions. He retired from the Air Force and NASA on July 1, 2001.
- Birthplace: Viroqua, Wisconsin
- David Cornell Leestma (born May 6, 1949) is a former American astronaut and retired Captain in the United States Navy.
- Birthplace: Muskegon, Michigan
- James Frederick Buchli (born June 20, 1945 in New Rockford, North Dakota) is a retired United States Marine aviator and former NASA astronaut who flew on four Space Shuttle missions.
- Birthplace: New Rockford, North Dakota
- Jerome "Jay" Apt III, Ph.D. (born April 28, 1949 in Massachusetts) is an American astronaut and professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Before he became an astronaut, Apt was a physicist who worked on the Pioneer Venus 1978 space probe project, and used visible light and infrared techniques to study the planets and moons of the solar system from ground-based observatories.
- Birthplace: Springfield, Massachusetts
- Donald Roy Pettit (born April 20, 1955) is an American chemical engineer and a NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of two long-duration stays aboard the International Space Station, one space shuttle mission and a six-week expedition to find meteorites in Antarctica. As of 2018, at age 63, he is NASA's oldest active astronaut.
- Birthplace: Silverton, Oregon, USA
- Joseph Percival "Joe" Allen IV, Ph.D. (born June 27, 1937) is a former NASA astronaut. He logged more than 3,000 hours flying time in jet aircraft. Allen is married to the former Bonnie Jo Darling of Elkhart, Indiana. They have two children.
- Birthplace: Crawfordsville, Indiana
- Ronald Anthony Parise (May 24, 1951 – May 9, 2008) was an Italian American scientist who flew aboard two NASA Space Shuttle missions as a payload specialist. Parise was born in Warren, Ohio to Henry and Catherine Parise. By age 11, he became a licensed amateur radio operator. In his teens, he developed an interest in astronomy and aviation and became a pilot. He attended Western Reserve High School, graduating in 1969 before attending Youngstown State University. In 1973, he obtained a bachelor of science degree in physics, with minors in mathematics, astronomy, and geology. He went on to receive a master's degree in 1977 and a doctorate in 1979 from the University of Florida, both in astronomy. He and his wife Cecelia Sokol Parise had two children. Parise died from a brain tumor on May 9, 2008 at the age of 56.
- Birthplace: Warren, Ohio
- Guy Spence Gardner (born January 6, 1948) is a United States Air Force officer and a former astronaut. He holds the rank of colonel. He flew as pilot on two Space Shuttle missions, STS-27 and STS-35. Gardner was also the 12th president of the Williamson Free School of Mechanical Trades.
- Birthplace: Altavista, Virginia
- William Anthony "Bill" Oefelein (; born March 29, 1965) is an American test pilot instructor and former NASA astronaut who, on his only spaceflight, piloted the STS-116 Space Shuttle mission.Oefelein gained media attention on February 5, 2007 when fellow astronaut Lisa Nowak was arrested in Florida and charged with attempting to kidnap his girlfriend, U.S. Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman. Nowak later pleaded guilty to felony burglary and misdemeanor battery. Oefelein admitted to a two-year affair with Nowak, and he and Nowak became the first astronauts ever dismissed from NASA. Following the dismissals, NASA created its first astronaut Code of Conduct.
- Birthplace: Fort Belvoir
- George David Low (February 19, 1956 – March 15, 2008) was an American aerospace executive and a NASA astronaut. He was born in 1956 to Dr. George Low, the Manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office. With undergraduate degrees in physics and mechanical engineering and a master's degree in aeronautics and astronautics, he worked in the JPL at the California Institute of Technology in the early 80's, before being picked as an astronaut candidate by NASA in 1984. In addition to holding some technical assignments, he logged more than 700 hours in space (including stints on the Columbia, the Atlantis and the Endeavour), before he left NASA in 1996 to pursue a career in the private sector.
- Birthplace: Cleveland, Ohio
- Leroy Chiao (born August 28, 1960) is a Chinese-American engineer, former NASA astronaut, entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and engineering consultant. Chiao flew on three Space Shuttle flights, and was the commander of Expedition 10, where he lived on board the International Space Station from October 13, 2004 to April 24, 2005. He is also a co-author and researcher for the Advanced Diagnostic Ultrasound in Microgravity project.
- Birthplace: Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
- Alan Goodwin "Dex" Poindexter (November 5, 1961 – July 1, 2012) was an American naval officer and a NASA astronaut. Poindexter was selected in the 1998 NASA Group (G17) and went into orbit aboard Space Shuttle missions STS-122 and STS-131.
- Birthplace: Pasadena, California
- Norman Earl Thagard (born July 3, 1943), (Capt, USMC, Ret.), is an American scientist and former U.S. Marine Corps officer and naval aviator and NASA astronaut. He is the first American to ride to space on board a Russian vehicle, and can be considered the first American cosmonaut. He did on this on March 14, 1995, in the Soyuz TM-21 spacecraft for the Russian Mir-18 mission.
- Birthplace: Marianna, Florida
- Ronald or Ron Evans may refer to: Ronald Evans (astronaut) (1933–1990), American naval officer and astronaut Ronald Evans (rugby league) (1933–2010), English rugby league footballer Ronald M. Evans (born 1949), American professor and biologist Ron Evans (1939–2007), Australian rules footballer and executive Ron J. Evans (1926–2004), Australian rules footballer Ron Evans (politician) (born 1957), clergyman and politician in Manitoba, Canada Ron Evans (cricketer) (1922–1993), English cricketer
- Birthplace: St. Francis, Kansas
- Mark Edward Kelly (born February 21, 1964) is an American politician, former astronaut, engineer, and U.S. Navy captain. He also is an author, political activist, as well as aerospace executive and consultant. Kelly is the husband of former U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords. A naval aviator, he flew combat missions during the Gulf War. He was selected to become a NASA Space Shuttle pilot in 1996 and flew his first mission in 2001 as pilot of STS-108. He piloted STS-121 in 2006 and commanded STS-124 in 2008 and STS-134 in 2011. STS-134 was his final mission and the final mission of Space Shuttle Endeavour.His wife was shot in an attempted assassination in Tucson, Arizona, on January 8, 2011, suffering serious injury to her brain. After the shooting, in which six people were killed, both Kelly and Giffords were thrust into the media spotlight. His wife's shooting led to a broad national conversation ranging from the duties of a husband to what is acceptable civil discourse.Kelly's identical twin, Scott Kelly, is also an astronaut. The Kelly brothers are the only known siblings to have both traveled in space. In 2015, Scott Kelly began a mission spending a year in space on the International Space Station. He returned to Earth on March 1, 2016, after 340 days in space. During and after Scott's year-long mission, the brothers were studied to find physical differences caused by living in space versus a baseline on Earth.On February 12, 2019, Kelly launched his campaign for the 2020 United States Senate special election in Arizona, running as a Democrat. He is vying for the Senate seat currently held by Republican Martha McSally, another combat veteran.
- Birthplace: City of Orange, New Jersey, USA
- Nicholas James MacDonald Patrick, Ph.D. (born 19 November 1964), is a British-American engineer and a former NASA astronaut. His flight on the 2006 Discovery STS-116 mission made him the fourth person born in the United Kingdom to go into space.
- Birthplace: Saltburn-by-the-Sea, United Kingdom
- Dorothy Marie "Dottie" Metcalf-Lindenburger (born May 2, 1975 in Colorado Springs, Colorado) is a former American astronaut. In 2000, she married Jason Metcalf-Lindenburger, a fellow Whitman College graduate and educator, from Pendleton, Oregon, and they now have 1 daughter together. She was a science teacher at Hudson's Bay High School in Vancouver, Washington when she was selected in 2004 as an Educator Mission Specialist. She was the first Space Camp alumna to become an astronaut.
- Birthplace: Colorado Springs, Colorado
- Laurel Blair Salton Clark (March 10, 1961 – February 1, 2003) was an American medical doctor, United States Navy Captain, NASA astronaut and Space Shuttle mission specialist. Clark died along with her six fellow crew members in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. She was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
- Birthplace: Ames, Iowa
- Steven Ray Swanson (born December 3, 1960 in Syracuse, New York) is an American Engineer and a retired NASA astronaut. He is married and has three children. He has received numerous awards and honors. These include the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal and the JSC Certificate of Accommodation and many others. Prior to becoming a NASA astronaut, Swanson worked for GTE in Phoenix, Arizona, as a software engineer. Swanson has flown two shuttle flights, STS-117 and STS-119. He has logged over 4,700 hours in space and completed four spacewalks totaling 26 hours and 14 minutes. Swanson has also served in other roles at NASA, such as a CAPCOM for both International Space Station and Space Shuttle missions.
- Birthplace: Syracuse, New York
- Richard Alan "Rick" Mastracchio (born February 11, 1960) is an American engineer and former NASA astronaut. He has flown on three NASA Space Shuttle missions as a mission specialist in addition to serving as a Flight Engineer on the Soyuz TMA-11M (Expedition 38/Expedition 39) long duration mission aboard the International Space Station. He is currently the Senior Director of Operations for Commercial Resupply Services at Orbital ATK.
- Birthplace: Waterbury, Connecticut
- Stanley Glen Love, Ph.D. (born June 8, 1965) is an American scientist and a NASA astronaut from Oregon.
- Birthplace: San Diego, California
- Christopher J. Ferguson (born September 1, 1961) is a Boeing commercial astronaut and a retired United States Navy Captain and NASA astronaut. He was the pilot of Space Shuttle Atlantis on his first mission to space, STS-115, which launched on September 9, 2006 and returned to Earth on September 21, 2006. He then commanded STS-126 aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour. In 2011, he was assigned as commander of STS-135, which was the final mission of the space shuttle program. On December 9, 2011, he retired from NASA and became director of Crew and Mission Operations for Boeing's Commercial Crew Program. In August 2018, Ferguson was assigned to the first test flight of the Boeing CST-100 Starliner.
- Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Katherine Megan McArthur (born August 30, 1971) is an American oceanographer and a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronaut. She has served as a Capsule Communicator (CAPCOM) for both the space shuttle and space station. Megan McArthur has flown one space shuttle mission, STS-125. She is known as the last person to be hands on with the Hubble Space Telescope (although she was not actually "hands on" since she was using the robotic arm at the time). McArthur has served in a number of positions including working in the Shuttle Avionics Laboratory (SAIL). She is married to fellow astronaut Robert L. Behnken. Megan also features as herself in a space based episode of the kids programme, Blaze and the Monster Machines.
- Birthplace: Honolulu, Hawaii
- Joan Elizabeth Higginbotham (born August 3, 1964) is an American engineer and a former NASA astronaut. She flew aboard Space Shuttle Discovery mission STS-116 as a mission specialist and is the third African American woman to go into space, after Mae Jemison and Stephanie Wilson.
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
- Loren James Shriver (born September 23, 1944) is a former NASA astronaut, aviator, and a retired US Air Force Colonel.
- Birthplace: Jefferson, Iowa
- Henry Warren "Hank" Hartsfield Jr. (November 21, 1933 – July 17, 2014) was a United States Air Force officer and a USAF and NASA astronaut who logged over 480 hours in space.
- Birthplace: Birmingham, Alabama
