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114-627: Launched in June 2015, the project - named for the Apollo Program , which brought together thousands of scientists and engineers to put mankind on the moon - calls for developed nations to commit to spending 0.02% of their GDP , for 10 years, to fund co-ordinated research to solve the challenge. This equates to $ 150 billion over a decade, roughly the same cost committed to the Apollo Program in 2015 money. Some developed nations, including

228-531: A human mission to Mars . Over the last decade, flight surgeons and scientists at NASA have seen a pattern of vision problems in astronauts on long-duration space missions. The syndrome, known as visual impairment intracranial pressure (VIIP) , has been reported in nearly two-thirds of space explorers after long periods spent aboard the International Space Station (ISS). On 2 November 2017, scientists reported that significant changes in

342-541: A mission module cabin separate from the command module (piloting and reentry cabin), and a propulsion and equipment module . On August 30, a feasibility study competition was announced, and on October 25, three study contracts were awarded to General Dynamics/Convair , General Electric , and the Glenn L. Martin Company . Meanwhile, NASA performed its own in-house spacecraft design studies led by Maxime Faget , to serve as

456-724: A "spacewalk"), on 18 March 1965, on the Soviet Union's Voskhod 2 mission. This was followed two and a half months later by astronaut Ed White who made the first American EVA on NASA's Gemini 4 mission. The first crewed mission to orbit the Moon, Apollo 8 , included American William Anders who was born in Hong Kong, making him the first Asian-born astronaut in 1968. The Soviet Union, through its Intercosmos program, allowed people from other " socialist " (i.e. Warsaw Pact and other Soviet-allied) countries to fly on its missions, with

570-773: A 130-million-cubic-foot (3,700,000 m ) Vertical Assembly Building (VAB). in which the space vehicle (launch vehicle and spacecraft) would be assembled on a mobile launcher platform and then moved by a crawler-transporter to one of several launch pads. Although at least three pads were planned, only two, designated A   and   B, were completed in October 1965. The LOC also included an Operations and Checkout Building (OCB) to which Gemini and Apollo spacecraft were initially received prior to being mated to their launch vehicles. The Apollo spacecraft could be tested in two vacuum chambers capable of simulating atmospheric pressure at altitudes up to 250,000 feet (76 km), which

684-470: A commitment on America's response to the Soviets. On April 20, Kennedy sent a memo to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson , asking Johnson to look into the status of America's space program, and into programs that could offer NASA the opportunity to catch up. Johnson responded approximately one week later, concluding that "we are neither making maximum effort nor achieving results necessary if this country

798-549: A crewed spacecraft, several other nations have sent people into space in cooperation with one of these countries, e.g. the Soviet-led Interkosmos program. Inspired partly by these missions, other synonyms for astronaut have entered occasional English usage. For example, the term spationaut (French: spationaute ) is sometimes used to describe French space travelers, from the Latin word spatium for "space";

912-460: A gauge to judge and monitor the three industry designs. In November 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected president after a campaign that promised American superiority over the Soviet Union in the fields of space exploration and missile defense . Up to the election of 1960, Kennedy had been speaking out against the " missile gap " that he and many other senators said had developed between

1026-492: A great new American enterprise—time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on Earth. ...   I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important in

1140-462: A limited Earth orbital mission, Apollo would carry three. Possible missions included ferrying crews to a space station , circumlunar flights , and eventual crewed lunar landings . In July 1960, NASA Deputy Administrator Hugh L. Dryden announced the Apollo program to industry representatives at a series of Space Task Group conferences. Preliminary specifications were laid out for a spacecraft with

1254-501: A plan for extended lunar geological and astrophysical exploration. Budget cuts forced the cancellation of three of these. Five of the remaining six missions achieved successful landings, but the Apollo 13 landing had to be aborted after an oxygen tank exploded en route to the Moon, crippling the CSM. The crew barely managed a safe return to Earth by using the lunar module as a "lifeboat" on

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1368-404: A reaction control system. The initial LM model weighed approximately 33,300 pounds (15,100 kg), and allowed surface stays up to around 34 hours. An extended lunar module (ELM) weighed over 36,200 pounds (16,400 kg), and allowed surface stays of more than three days. The contract for design and construction of the lunar module was awarded to Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation , and

1482-625: A researcher from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who flew on STS-9 in 1983. In December 1990, Toyohiro Akiyama became the first paying space traveler and the first journalist in space for Tokyo Broadcasting System , a visit to Mir as part of an estimated $ 12 million (USD) deal with a Japanese TV station, although at the time, the term used to refer to Akiyama was "Research Cosmonaut". Akiyama suffered severe space sickness during his mission, which affected his productivity. The first self-funded space tourist

1596-558: A spacecraft that could meet it while minimizing risk to human life, limiting cost, and not exceeding limits in possible technology and astronaut skill. Four possible mission modes were considered: In early 1961, direct ascent was generally the mission mode in favor at NASA. Many engineers feared that rendezvous and docking, maneuvers that had not been attempted in Earth orbit , would be nearly impossible in lunar orbit . LOR advocates including John Houbolt at Langley Research Center emphasized

1710-499: A three-person spacecraft to follow the one-person Project Mercury , which put the first Americans in space. Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy 's national goal for the 1960s of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" in an address to Congress on May 25, 1961. It was the third US human spaceflight program to fly, preceded by the two-person Project Gemini conceived in 1961 to extend spaceflight capability in support of Apollo. Kennedy's goal

1824-584: Is John Glenn , one of the Mercury 7 , who was 77 when he flew on STS-95 . The longest time spent in space was by Russian Valeri Polyakov , who spent 438 days there. As of 2006, the most spaceflights by an individual astronaut is seven, a record held by both Jerry L. Ross and Franklin Chang-Diaz . The farthest distance from Earth an astronaut has traveled was 401,056 km (249,205 mi), when Jim Lovell , Jack Swigert , and Fred Haise went around

1938-540: Is "keen" on the programme. Apollo program The Apollo program , also known as Project Apollo , was the United States human spaceflight program carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which succeeded in preparing and landing the first men on the Moon in 1969. It was first conceived in 1960 during President Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration as

2052-463: Is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft . Although generally reserved for professional space travelers, the term is sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists, and tourists . "Astronaut" technically applies to all human space travelers regardless of nationality. However, astronauts fielded by Russia or

2166-863: Is also where the Shuttle Training Aircraft is maintained and developed, although most flights of the aircraft are conducted from Edwards Air Force Base . Astronauts in training must learn how to control and fly the Space Shuttle; further, it is vital that they are familiar with the International Space Station so they know what they must do when they get there. The master's degree requirement can also be met by: Mission Specialist Educators , or "Educator Astronauts", were first selected in 2004; as of 2007, there are three NASA Educator astronauts: Joseph M. Acaba , Richard R. Arnold , and Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger . Barbara Morgan , selected as back-up teacher to Christa McAuliffe in 1985,

2280-436: Is anticipated that remote guided ultrasound will have application on Earth in emergency and rural care situations, where access to a trained physician is often rare. A 2006 Space Shuttle experiment found that Salmonella typhimurium , a bacterium that can cause food poisoning , became more virulent when cultivated in space. More recently, in 2017, bacteria were found to be more resistant to antibiotics and to thrive in

2394-522: Is called an astronaut . The first known use of the term "astronaut" in the modern sense was by Neil R. Jones in his 1930 short story "The Death's Head Meteor". The word itself had been known earlier; for example, in Percy Greg 's 1880 book Across the Zodiac , "astronaut" referred to a spacecraft. In Les Navigateurs de l'infini (1925) by J.-H. Rosny aîné , the word astronautique ( astronautics )

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2508-644: Is considered to be the first Educator astronaut by the media, but she trained as a mission specialist. The Educator Astronaut program is a successor to the Teacher in Space program from the 1980s. Astronauts are susceptible to a variety of health risks including decompression sickness , barotrauma , immunodeficiencies , loss of bone and muscle , loss of eyesight , orthostatic intolerance , sleep disturbances , and radiation injury. A variety of large scale medical studies are being conducted in space via

2622-508: Is nearly a vacuum. Administrator Webb realized that in order to keep Apollo costs under control, he had to develop greater project management skills in his organization, so he recruited George E. Mueller for a high management job. Mueller accepted, on the condition that he have a say in NASA reorganization necessary to effectively administer Apollo. Webb then worked with Associate Administrator (later Deputy Administrator) Seamans to reorganize

2736-428: Is spearheaded by the chemist Professor Sir David King , former Government Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government . Amongst the Apollo group are economists Professor Lord Stern (author of The Stern Review ) and Lord O'Donnell (former Cabinet Secretary ), businessmen Lord Turner and Lord Browne (former Chief Executive of BP ), cosmologist and astrophysicist Professor Lord Rees (former President of

2850-460: Is strictly defined as the navigation of outer space within the local star system , i.e. Solar System . The phrase tàikōng rén ( 太空人 , "spaceman") is often used in Hong Kong and Taiwan . The term taikonaut is used by some English-language news media organizations for professional space travelers from China . The word has featured in the Longman and Oxford English dictionaries, and

2964-472: Is to reach a position of leadership." His memo concluded that a crewed Moon landing was far enough in the future that it was likely the United States would achieve it first. On May 25, 1961, twenty days after the first US crewed spaceflight Freedom 7 , Kennedy proposed the crewed Moon landing in a Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs : Now it is time to take longer strides—time for

3078-562: The Apollo command and service module , succeeding the Mercury program . A lunar landing became the focus of the program only in 1961. Thereafter Project Gemini instead followed the Mercury program to test and study advanced crewed spaceflight technology. The Apollo program was conceived during the Eisenhower administration in early 1960, as a follow-up to Project Mercury. While the Mercury capsule could support only one astronaut on

3192-575: The International Space Station : The first NASA astronauts were selected for training in 1959. Early in the space program, military jet test piloting and engineering training were often cited as prerequisites for selection as an astronaut at NASA, although neither John Glenn nor Scott Carpenter (of the Mercury Seven ) had any university degree, in engineering or any other discipline at the time of their selection. Selection

3306-541: The Kármán line , at an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 mi). In the United States, professional, military, and commercial astronauts who travel above an altitude of 80 kilometres (50 mi) are awarded astronaut wings . As of 17 November 2016 , 552 people from 36 countries have reached 100 km (62 mi) or more in altitude, of whom 549 reached low Earth orbit or beyond. Of these, 24 people have traveled beyond low Earth orbit, either to lunar orbit,

3420-693: The Malay term angkasawan (deriving from angkasa meaning 'space') was used to describe participants in the Angkasawan program (note its similarity with the Indonesian term antariksawan ). Plans of the Indian Space Research Organisation to launch its crewed Gaganyaan spacecraft have spurred at times public discussion if another term than astronaut should be used for the crew members, suggesting vyomanaut (from

3534-846: The National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) to address these issues. Prominent among these is the Advanced Diagnostic Ultrasound in Microgravity Study in which astronauts (including former ISS commanders Leroy Chiao and Gennady Padalka ) perform ultrasound scans under the guidance of remote experts to diagnose and potentially treat hundreds of medical conditions in space. This study's techniques are now being applied to cover professional and Olympic sports injuries as well as ultrasound performed by non-expert operators in medical and high school students. It

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3648-474: The People's Liberation Army Astronaut Corps astronauts and their foreign counterparts are all officially called hángtiānyuán ( 航天员 , meaning "heaven navigator" or literally " heaven-sailing staff"). Since 1961, 600 astronauts have flown in space. Until 2002, astronauts were sponsored and trained exclusively by governments, either by the military or by civilian space agencies. With the suborbital flight of

3762-473: The SPS ." Ironically, just such a failure happened on Apollo 13 when an oxygen tank explosion left the CSM without electrical power. The lunar module provided propulsion, electrical power and life support to get the crew home safely. Faget's preliminary Apollo design employed a cone-shaped command module, supported by one of several service modules providing propulsion and electrical power, sized appropriately for

3876-673: The Sanskrit word vyoman meaning 'sky' or 'space') or gagannaut (from the Sanskrit word gagan for 'sky'). In Finland , the NASA astronaut Timothy Kopra , a Finnish American , has sometimes been referred to as sisunautti , from the Finnish word sisu . Across Germanic languages, the word for "astronaut" typically translates to "space traveler", as it does with German's Raumfahrer , Dutch's ruimtevaarder , Swedish's rymdfarare , and Norwegian's romfarer . As of 2021 in

3990-540: The Saturn V launch vehicle and LOR by forcing Shea, Seamans, and even Webb to defend themselves, delaying its formal announcement to the press on July 11, 1962, and forcing Webb to still hedge the decision as "tentative". Wiesner kept up the pressure, even making the disagreement public during a two-day September visit by the President to Marshall Space Flight Center . Wiesner blurted out "No, that's no good" in front of

4104-611: The Shenzhou 5 spacecraft. On 30 May 2020, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken became the first astronauts to launch on a private crewed spacecraft, Crew Dragon . The youngest person to reach space is Oliver Daemen , who was 18 years and 11 months old when he made a suborbital spaceflight on Blue Origin NS-16 . Daemen, who was a commercial passenger aboard the New Shepard , broke the record of Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov , who

4218-512: The Soviet Union are typically known instead as cosmonauts (from the Russian "kosmos" (космос), meaning "space", also borrowed from Greek κόσμος ). Comparatively recent developments in crewed spaceflight made by China have led to the rise of the term taikonaut (from the Mandarin "tàikōng" ( 太空 ), meaning "space"), although its use is somewhat informal and its origin is unclear. In China,

4332-526: The U.S. Air Force , so he got Webb's permission to recruit General Samuel C. Phillips , who gained a reputation for his effective management of the Minuteman program, as OMSF program controller. Phillips's superior officer Bernard A. Schriever agreed to loan Phillips to NASA, along with a staff of officers under him, on the condition that Phillips be made Apollo Program Director. Mueller agreed, and Phillips managed Apollo from January 1964, until it achieved

4446-501: The UK , already meet the GDP percentage target spend, but many do not and there is little international coordination to maximise the results. It has been modelled on the more recent International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors , an international research collaborative that is credited with greatly and swiftly improving the quality and economics of semiconductor manufacture. The initiative

4560-737: The White Sands Missile Range between May 1964 and January 1966. Saturn I, the first US heavy lift launch vehicle, was initially planned to launch partially equipped CSMs in low Earth orbit tests. The S-I first stage burned RP-1 with liquid oxygen (LOX) oxidizer in eight clustered Rocketdyne H-1 engines, to produce 1,500,000 pounds-force (6,670 kN) of thrust. The S-IV second stage used six liquid hydrogen-fueled Pratt & Whitney RL-10 engines with 90,000 pounds-force (400 kN) of thrust. The S-V third stage flew inactively on Saturn I four times. The first four Saturn I test flights were launched from LC-34, with only

4674-498: The planet Mars , may substantially damage the gastrointestinal tissues of astronauts. The studies support earlier work that found such journeys could significantly damage the brains of astronauts, and age them prematurely. Researchers in 2018 reported, after detecting the presence on the International Space Station (ISS) of five Enterobacter bugandensis bacterial strains, none pathogenic to humans, that microorganisms on ISS should be carefully monitored to continue assuring

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4788-543: The " Vomit Comet ," the nickname given to a pair of modified KC-135s (retired in 2000 and 2004, respectively, and replaced in 2005 with a C-9 ) which perform parabolic flights. Astronauts are also required to accumulate a number of flight hours in high-performance jet aircraft. This is mostly done in T-38 jet aircraft out of Ellington Field , due to its proximity to the Johnson Space Center . Ellington Field

4902-450: The "5" indicating Saturn V. The three-stage Saturn V was designed to send a fully fueled CSM and LM to the Moon. It was 33 feet (10.1 m) in diameter and stood 363 feet (110.6 m) tall with its 96,800-pound (43,900 kg) lunar payload. Its capability grew to 103,600 pounds (47,000 kg) for the later advanced lunar landings. The S-IC first stage burned RP-1/LOX for a rated thrust of 7,500,000 pounds-force (33,400 kN), which

5016-546: The 100 kilometers (54 nautical miles) line, qualifying him by the international definition of spaceflight. Walker had joined the US Army Air Force but was not a member during his flight. The first people in space who had never been a member of any country's armed forces were both Konstantin Feoktistov and Boris Yegorov aboard Voskhod 1 . The first non-governmental space traveler was Byron K. Lichtenberg ,

5130-451: The 1960s, President Kennedy's target date. The LOR method had the advantage of allowing the lander spacecraft to be used as a "lifeboat" in the event of a failure of the command ship. Some documents prove this theory was discussed before and after the method was chosen. In 1964 an MSC study concluded, "The LM [as lifeboat]   ... was finally dropped, because no single reasonable CSM failure could be identified that would prohibit use of

5244-523: The CSM's role to the translunar ferry used to transport the crew, along with a new spacecraft, the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM, later shortened to LM (Lunar Module) but still pronounced / ˈ l ɛ m / ) which would take two individuals to the lunar surface and return them to the CSM. The command module (CM) was the conical crew cabin, designed to carry three astronauts from launch to lunar orbit and back to an Earth ocean landing. It

5358-630: The Canaveral launch facilities in Florida . The two newest launch complexes were already being built for the Saturn I and IB rockets at the northernmost end: LC-34 and LC-37 . But an even bigger facility would be needed for the mammoth rocket required for the crewed lunar mission, so land acquisition was started in July 1961 for a Launch Operations Center (LOC) immediately north of Canaveral at Merritt Island . The design, development and construction of

5472-409: The Earth was John Glenn , aboard Friendship 7 on 20 February 1962. The first American woman in space was Sally Ride , during Space Shuttle Challenger 's mission STS-7 , on 18 June 1983. In 1992, Mae Jemison became the first African American woman to travel in space aboard STS-47 . Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov was the first person to conduct an extravehicular activity (EVA), (commonly called

5586-430: The Earth's atmosphere or return to Earth, its fuselage was designed totally without aerodynamic considerations and was of an extremely lightweight construction. It consisted of separate descent and ascent stages, each with its own engine. The descent stage contained storage for the descent propellant, surface stay consumables, and surface exploration equipment. The ascent stage contained the crew cabin, ascent propellant, and

5700-570: The Earth, Gilruth had moved his organization to rented space in Houston, and construction of the MSC facility was under way, Kennedy visited Rice to reiterate his challenge in a famous speech : But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain ? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic ?   ... We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to

5814-533: The European Space Agency envisioned recruiting an astronaut with a physical disability, a category they called "parastronauts", with the intention but not guarantee of spaceflight. The categories of disability considered for the program were individuals with lower limb deficiency (either through amputation or congenital), leg length difference, or a short stature (less than 130 centimetres or 4 feet 3 inches). On 23 November 2022, John McFall

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5928-613: The Moon by the end of 1969 required the most sudden burst of technological creativity, and the largest commitment of resources ($ 25 billion; $ 182 billion in 2023 US dollars) ever made by any nation in peacetime. At its peak, the Apollo program employed 400,000 people and required the support of over 20,000 industrial firms and universities. On July 1, 1960, NASA established the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama . MSFC designed

6042-462: The Moon during the Apollo 13 emergency. The first civilian in space was Valentina Tereshkova aboard Vostok 6 (she also became the first woman in space on that mission). Tereshkova was only honorarily inducted into the USSR's Air Force, which did not accept female pilots at that time. A month later, Joseph Albert Walker became the first American civilian in space when his X-15 Flight 90 crossed

6156-628: The Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills; because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win   ... The MSC was completed in September 1963. It was renamed by the US Congress in honor of Lyndon Johnson soon after his death in 1973. It also became clear that Apollo would outgrow

6270-461: The Moon, the last, Apollo 17 , in December 1972. In these six spaceflights, twelve people walked on the Moon . Apollo ran from 1961 to 1972, with the first crewed flight in 1968. It encountered a major setback in 1967 when an Apollo 1 cabin fire killed the entire crew during a prelaunch test. After the first successful landing, sufficient flight hardware remained for nine follow-on landings with

6384-591: The October Cuban Missile Crisis , and fear of Kennedy's support for Webb. NASA announced the selection of Grumman as the LEM contractor in November 1962. Space historian James Hansen concludes that: Without NASA's adoption of this stubbornly held minority opinion in 1962, the United States may still have reached the Moon, but almost certainly it would not have been accomplished by the end of

6498-815: The Office of Manned Space Flight (OMSF). On July 23, 1963, Webb announced Mueller's appointment as Deputy Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, to replace then Associate Administrator D. Brainerd Holmes on his retirement effective September 1. Under Webb's reorganization, the directors of the Manned Spacecraft Center ( Gilruth ), Marshall Space Flight Center ( von Braun ), and the Launch Operations Center ( Debus ) reported to Mueller. Based on his industry experience on Air Force missile projects, Mueller realized some skilled managers could be found among high-ranking officers in

6612-602: The Royal Society ) and labour economist Lord Layard . The following were signatories on an open letter published to The Guardian newspaper, alongside the launch report authors, in September 2015. Professor Jeffrey Sachs , Professor of Sustainable Development and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University has separately publicly endorsed the programme. Professor Sir David King has publicly stated that Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi

6726-455: The Russian kosmonavt, such as the Polish : kosmonauta (although Poles also used astronauta , and the two words are considered synonyms). Coinage of the term космонавт has been credited to Soviet aeronautics (or " cosmonautics ") pioneer Mikhail Tikhonravov (1900–1974). The first cosmonaut was Soviet Air Force pilot Yuri Gagarin , also the first person in space. He was part of

6840-555: The Saturn V. The Saturn IB could send over 40,000 pounds (18,100 kg) into low Earth orbit, sufficient for a partially fueled CSM or the LM. Saturn IB launch vehicles and flights were designated with an AS-200 series number, "AS" indicating "Apollo Saturn" and the "2" indicating the second member of the Saturn rocket family. Saturn V launch vehicles and flights were designated with an AS-500 series number, "AS" indicating "Apollo Saturn" and

6954-457: The Soviet Union and the United States due to the inaction of President Eisenhower. Beyond military power, Kennedy used aerospace technology as a symbol of national prestige, pledging to make the US not "first but, first and, first if, but first period". Despite Kennedy's rhetoric, he did not immediately come to a decision on the status of the Apollo program once he became president. He knew little about

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7068-607: The United States, astronaut status is conferred on a person depending on the authorizing agency: On July 20, 2021, the FAA issued an order redefining the eligibility criteria to be an astronaut in response to the private suborbital spaceflights of Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson . The new criteria states that one must have "[d]emonstrated activities during flight that were essential to public safety, or contributed to human space flight safety" to qualify as an astronaut. This new definition excludes Bezos and Branson. The first human in space

7182-472: The center was conducted by Kurt H. Debus , a member of Wernher von Braun 's original V-2 rocket engineering team. Debus was named the LOC's first Director. Construction began in November 1962. Following Kennedy's death , President Johnson issued an executive order on November 29, 1963, to rename the LOC and Cape Canaveral in honor of Kennedy. The LOC included Launch Complex 39 , a Launch Control Center , and

7296-426: The clear goal of a crewed landing replacing the more nebulous goals of space stations and circumlunar flights, NASA decided that, in order to make progress quickly, it would discard the feasibility study designs of Convair, GE, and Martin, and proceed with Faget's command and service module design. The mission module was determined to be useful only as an extra room, and therefore unnecessary. They used Faget's design as

7410-449: The contract to build the CSM, and also the second stage of the Saturn V launch vehicle for NASA. Because the CSM design was started early before the selection of lunar orbit rendezvous, the service propulsion engine was sized to lift the CSM off the Moon, and thus was oversized to about twice the thrust required for translunar flight. Also, there was no provision for docking with the lunar module. A 1964 program definition study concluded that

7524-653: The first Asian in space when he flew aboard Soyuz 37 . Also in 1980, Cuban Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez became the first person of Hispanic and black African descent to fly in space, and in 1983, Guion Bluford became the first African American to fly into space. In April 1985, Taylor Wang became the first ethnic Chinese person in space. The first person born in Africa to fly in space was Patrick Baudry (France), in 1985. In 1985, Saudi Arabian Prince Sultan Bin Salman Bin AbdulAziz Al-Saud became

7638-437: The first American to ride to space on board a Russian launch vehicle, and thus became the first "American cosmonaut". In Chinese, the term Yǔ háng yuán ( 宇航员 , "cosmos navigating personnel") is used for astronauts and cosmonauts in general, while hángtiān yuán ( 航天员 , "navigating celestial-heaven personnel") is used for Chinese astronauts. Here, hángtiān ( 航天 , literally "heaven-navigating", or spaceflight )

7752-551: The first Arab Muslim astronaut in space. In 1988, Abdul Ahad Mohmand became the first Afghan to reach space, spending nine days aboard the Mir space station. With the increase of seats on the Space Shuttle, the U.S. began taking international astronauts. In 1983, Ulf Merbold of West Germany became the first non-US citizen to fly in a US spacecraft. In 1984, Marc Garneau became the first of eight Canadian astronauts to fly in space (through 2010). In 1985, Rodolfo Neri Vela became

7866-418: The first Mexican-born person in space. In 1991, Helen Sharman became the first Briton to fly in space. In 2002, Mark Shuttleworth became the first citizen of an African country to fly in space, as a paying spaceflight participant. In 2003, Ilan Ramon became the first Israeli to fly in space, although he died during a re-entry accident . On 15 October 2003, Yang Liwei became China's first astronaut on

7980-463: The first human landing in July 1969, after which he returned to Air Force duty. Charles Fishman, in One Giant Leap , estimated the number of people and organizations involved into the Apollo program as "410,000 men and women at some 20,000 different companies contributed to the effort". Once Kennedy had defined a goal, the Apollo mission planners were faced with the challenge of designing

8094-698: The first person in space twice. Space travelers have spent over 41,790 man-days (114.5-man-years) in space, including over 100 astronaut-days of spacewalks . As of 2024 , the man with the longest cumulative time in space is Oleg Kononenko , who has spent over 1100 days in space. Peggy A. Whitson holds the record for the most time in space by a woman, at 675 days. In 1959, when both the United States and Soviet Union were planning, but had yet to launch humans into space, NASA Administrator T. Keith Glennan and his Deputy Administrator, Hugh Dryden , discussed whether spacecraft crew members should be called astronauts or cosmonauts . Dryden preferred "cosmonaut", on

8208-485: The first person to fly in space, reinforcing American fears about being left behind in a technological competition with the Soviet Union. At a meeting of the US House Committee on Science and Astronautics one day after Gagarin's flight, many congressmen pledged their support for a crash program aimed at ensuring that America would catch up. Kennedy was circumspect in his response to the news, refusing to make

8322-507: The first six Soviet citizens, with German Titov , Yevgeny Khrunov , Andriyan Nikolayev , Pavel Popovich , and Grigoriy Nelyubov , who were given the title of pilot-cosmonaut in January 1961. Valentina Tereshkova was the first female cosmonaut and the first and youngest woman to have flown in space with a solo mission on the Vostok 6 in 1963. On 14 March 1995, Norman Thagard became

8436-421: The first stage live, carrying dummy upper stages filled with water. The first flight with a live S-IV was launched from LC-37. This was followed by five launches of boilerplate CSMs (designated AS-101 through AS-105 ) into orbit in 1964 and 1965. The last three of these further supported the Apollo program by also carrying Pegasus satellites, which verified the safety of the translunar environment by measuring

8550-445: The frequency and severity of micrometeorite impacts. In September 1962, NASA planned to launch four crewed CSM flights on the Saturn I from late 1965 through 1966, concurrent with Project Gemini. The 22,500-pound (10,200 kg) payload capacity would have severely limited the systems which could be included, so the decision was made in October 1963 to use the uprated Saturn IB for all crewed Earth orbital flights. The Saturn IB

8664-434: The grounds that flights would occur in and to the broader cosmos , while the "astro" prefix suggested flight specifically to the stars . Most NASA Space Task Group members preferred "astronaut", which survived by common usage as the preferred American term. When the Soviet Union launched the first man into space, Yuri Gagarin in 1961, they chose a term which anglicizes to "cosmonaut". A professional space traveler

8778-508: The heavy lift-class Saturn launch vehicles , which would be required for Apollo. It became clear that managing the Apollo program would exceed the capabilities of Robert R. Gilruth 's Space Task Group , which had been directing the nation's crewed space program from NASA's Langley Research Center . So Gilruth was given authority to grow his organization into a new NASA center, the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC). A site

8892-488: The important weight reductions that were offered by the LOR approach. Throughout 1960 and 1961, Houbolt campaigned for the recognition of LOR as a viable and practical option. Bypassing the NASA hierarchy, he sent a series of memos and reports on the issue to Associate Administrator Robert Seamans; while acknowledging that he spoke "somewhat as a voice in the wilderness", Houbolt pleaded that LOR should not be discounted in studies of

9006-496: The initial design should be continued as Block I which would be used for early testing, while Block II, the actual lunar spacecraft, would incorporate the docking equipment and take advantage of the lessons learned in Block I development. The Apollo Lunar Module (LM) was designed to descend from lunar orbit to land two astronauts on the Moon and take them back to orbit to rendezvous with the command module. Not designed to fly through

9120-450: The long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. At the time of Kennedy's proposal, only one American had flown in space—less than a month earlier—and NASA had not yet sent an astronaut into orbit. Even some NASA employees doubted whether Kennedy's ambitious goal could be met. By 1963, Kennedy even came close to agreeing to a joint US-USSR Moon mission, to eliminate duplication of effort. With

9234-510: The lunar flights. On the extended lunar missions, an orbital scientific instrument package was carried. The service module was discarded just before reentry. The module was 24.6 feet (7.5 m) long and 12.83 feet (3.91 m) in diameter. The initial lunar flight version weighed approximately 51,300 pounds (23,300 kg) fully fueled, while a later version designed to carry a lunar orbit scientific instrument package weighed just over 54,000 pounds (24,000 kg). North American Aviation won

9348-514: The lunar surface, or, in one case, a loop around the Moon . Three of the 24— Jim Lovell , John Young and Eugene Cernan —did so twice. As of 17 November 2016 , under the U.S. definition, 558 people qualify as having reached space, above 50 miles (80 km) altitude. Of eight X-15 pilots who exceeded 50 miles (80 km) in altitude, only one, Joseph A. Walker , exceeded 100 kilometers (about 62.1 miles) and he did it two times, becoming

9462-459: The near-weightlessness of space. Microorganisms have been observed to survive the vacuum of outer space. On 31 December 2012, a NASA -supported study reported that human spaceflight may harm the brain and accelerate the onset of Alzheimer's disease . In October 2015, the NASA Office of Inspector General issued a health hazards report related to space exploration , including

9576-588: The notable exceptions of France and Austria participating in Soyuz TM-7 and Soyuz TM-13 , respectively. An example is Czechoslovak Vladimír Remek , the first cosmonaut from a country other than the Soviet Union or the United States , who flew to space in 1978 on a Soyuz-U rocket. Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian citizen to travel to space. He was launched aboard Soyuz T-11 , on 2 April 1984. On 23 July 1980, Pham Tuan of Vietnam became

9690-564: The position and structure of the brain have been found in astronauts who have taken trips in space , based on MRI studies . Astronauts who took longer space trips were associated with greater brain changes. Being in space can be physiologically deconditioning on the body. It can affect the otolith organs and adaptive capabilities of the central nervous system . Zero gravity and cosmic rays can cause many implications for astronauts. In October 2018, NASA -funded researchers found that lengthy journeys into outer space , including travel to

9804-483: The press, during a presentation by von Braun. Webb jumped in and defended von Braun, until Kennedy ended the squabble by stating that the matter was "still subject to final review". Webb held firm and issued a request for proposal to candidate Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) contractors. Wiesner finally relented, unwilling to settle the dispute once and for all in Kennedy's office, because of the President's involvement with

9918-487: The privately funded SpaceShipOne in 2004, a new category of astronaut was created: the commercial astronaut . The criteria for what constitutes human spaceflight vary, with some focus on the point where the atmosphere becomes so thin that centrifugal force , rather than aerodynamic force , carries a significant portion of the weight of the flight object. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) Sporting Code for astronautics recognizes only flights that exceed

10032-556: The project was overseen by Thomas J. Kelly . Before the Apollo program began, Wernher von Braun and his team of rocket engineers had started work on plans for very large launch vehicles, the Saturn series , and the even larger Nova series. In the midst of these plans, von Braun was transferred from the Army to NASA and was made Director of the Marshall Space Flight Center. The initial direct ascent plan to send

10146-519: The question. Seamans's establishment of an ad hoc committee headed by his special technical assistant Nicholas E. Golovin in July 1961, to recommend a launch vehicle to be used in the Apollo program, represented a turning point in NASA's mission mode decision. This committee recognized that the chosen mode was an important part of the launch vehicle choice, and recommended in favor of a hybrid EOR-LOR mode. Its consideration of LOR—as well as Houbolt's ceaseless work—played an important role in publicizing

10260-555: The return journey. Apollo used the Saturn family of rockets as launch vehicles, which were also used for an Apollo Applications Program , which consisted of Skylab , a space station that supported three crewed missions in 1973–1974, and the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project, a joint United States - Soviet Union low Earth orbit mission in 1975. Apollo set several major human spaceflight milestones . It stands alone in sending crewed missions beyond low Earth orbit . Apollo 8

10374-400: The space station, cislunar, and lunar landing missions. Once Kennedy's Moon landing goal became official, detailed design began of a command and service module (CSM) in which the crew would spend the entire direct-ascent mission and lift off from the lunar surface for the return trip, after being soft-landed by a larger landing propulsion module. The final choice of lunar orbit rendezvous changed

10488-452: The specification for another competition for spacecraft procurement bids in October 1961. On November 28, 1961, it was announced that North American Aviation had won the contract, although its bid was not rated as good as the Martin proposal. Webb, Dryden and Robert Seamans chose it in preference due to North American's longer association with NASA and its predecessor . Landing humans on

10602-427: The technical details of the space program, and was put off by the massive financial commitment required by a crewed Moon landing. When Kennedy's newly appointed NASA Administrator James E. Webb requested a 30 percent budget increase for his agency, Kennedy supported an acceleration of NASA's large booster program but deferred a decision on the broader issue. On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became

10716-600: The term astronaut for members of its Astronaut Corps . By convention, an astronaut employed by the Russian Federal Space Agency (or its predecessor, the Soviet space program ) is called a cosmonaut in English texts. The word is an Anglicization of kosmonavt (Russian: космонавт Russian pronunciation: [kəsmɐˈnaft] ). Other countries of the former Eastern Bloc use variations of

10830-616: The term became more common in 2003 when China sent its first astronaut Yang Liwei into space aboard the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft. This is the term used by Xinhua News Agency in the English version of the Chinese People's Daily since the advent of the Chinese space program. The origin of the term is unclear; as early as May 1998, Chiew Lee Yih ( 趙裡昱 ) from Malaysia used it in newsgroups . For its 2022 Astronaut Group ,

10944-940: The three-person Apollo command and service module directly to the lunar surface, on top of a large descent rocket stage, would require a Nova-class launcher, with a lunar payload capability of over 180,000 pounds (82,000 kg). The June 11, 1962, decision to use lunar orbit rendezvous enabled the Saturn V to replace the Nova, and the MSFC proceeded to develop the Saturn rocket family for Apollo. Since Apollo, like Mercury, used more than one launch vehicle for space missions, NASA used spacecraft-launch vehicle combination series numbers: AS-10x for Saturn I, AS-20x for Saturn IB, and AS-50x for Saturn V (compare Mercury-Redstone 3 , Mercury-Atlas 6 ) to designate and plan all missions, rather than numbering them sequentially as in Project Gemini. This

11058-430: The workability of the approach. In late 1961 and early 1962, members of the Manned Spacecraft Center began to come around to support LOR, including the newly hired deputy director of the Office of Manned Space Flight, Joseph Shea , who became a champion of LOR. The engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), who were heavily invested in direct ascent, took longer to become convinced of its merits, but their conversion

11172-487: Was Dennis Tito on board the Russian spacecraft Soyuz TM-3 on 28 April 2001. The first person to fly on an entirely privately funded mission was Mike Melvill , piloting SpaceShipOne flight 15P on a suborbital journey, although he was a test pilot employed by Scaled Composites and not an actual paying space tourist. Jared Isaacman was the first person to self-fund a mission to orbit, commanding Inspiration4 in 2021. Nine others have paid Space Adventures to fly to

11286-482: Was 11.42 feet (3.48 m) tall, 12.83 feet (3.91 m) in diameter, and weighed approximately 12,250 pounds (5,560 kg). A cylindrical service module (SM) supported the command module, with a service propulsion engine and an RCS with propellants, and a fuel cell power generation system with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen reactants. A high-gain S-band antenna was used for long-distance communications on

11400-456: Was 25 years old when he flew Vostok 2 . Titov remains the youngest human to reach orbit ; he rounded the planet 17 times. Titov was also the first person to suffer space sickness and the first person to sleep in space, twice. The oldest person to reach space is William Shatner , who was 90 years old when he made a suborbital spaceflight on Blue Origin NS-18 . The oldest person to reach orbit

11514-443: Was Soviet Yuri Gagarin , who was launched on 12 April 1961, aboard Vostok 1 and orbited around the Earth for 108 minutes. The first woman in space was Soviet Valentina Tereshkova , who launched on 16 June 1963, aboard Vostok 6 and orbited Earth for almost three days. Alan Shepard became the first American and second person in space on 5 May 1961, on a 15-minute sub-orbital flight aboard Freedom 7 . The first American to orbit

11628-471: Was accomplished on the Apollo 11 mission when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their Apollo Lunar Module (LM) on July 20, 1969, and walked on the lunar surface, while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the command and service module (CSM), and all three landed safely on Earth in the Pacific Ocean on July 24. Five subsequent Apollo missions also landed astronauts on

11742-619: Was an upgraded version of the Saturn I. The S-IB first stage increased the thrust to 1,600,000 pounds-force (7,120 kN) by uprating the H-1 engine. The second stage replaced the S-IV with the S-IVB-200 , powered by a single J-2 engine burning liquid hydrogen fuel with LOX, to produce 200,000 pounds-force (890  kN ) of thrust. A restartable version of the S-IVB was used as the third stage of

11856-497: Was announced by Wernher von Braun at a briefing on June 7, 1962. But even after NASA reached internal agreement, it was far from smooth sailing. Kennedy's science advisor Jerome Wiesner , who had expressed his opposition to human spaceflight to Kennedy before the President took office, and had opposed the decision to land people on the Moon, hired Golovin, who had left NASA, to chair his own "Space Vehicle Panel", ostensibly to monitor, but actually to second-guess NASA's decisions on

11970-606: Was changed by the time human flights began. Since Apollo, like Mercury, would require a launch escape system (LES) in case of a launch failure, a relatively small rocket was required for qualification flight testing of this system. A rocket bigger than the Little Joe used by Mercury would be required, so the Little Joe II was built by General Dynamics / Convair . After an August 1963 qualification test flight , four LES test flights ( A-001 through 004 ) were made at

12084-546: Was chosen in Houston , Texas, on land donated by Rice University , and Administrator Webb announced the conversion on September 19, 1961. It was also clear NASA would soon outgrow its practice of controlling missions from its Cape Canaveral Air Force Station launch facilities in Florida, so a new Mission Control Center would be included in the MSC. In September 1962, by which time two Project Mercury astronauts had orbited

12198-502: Was initially limited to military pilots. The earliest astronauts for both the US and the USSR tended to be jet fighter pilots, and were often test pilots. Once selected, NASA astronauts go through twenty months of training in a variety of areas, including training for extravehicular activity in a facility such as NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory . Astronauts-in-training (astronaut candidates) may also experience short periods of weightlessness ( microgravity ) in an aircraft called

12312-578: Was named after Apollo , the Greek god of light, music, and the Sun, by NASA manager Abe Silverstein , who later said, "I was naming the spacecraft like I'd name my baby." Silverstein chose the name at home one evening, early in 1960, because he felt "Apollo riding his chariot across the Sun was appropriate to the grand scale of the proposed program". The context of this was that the program focused at its beginning mainly on developing an advanced crewed spacecraft,

12426-468: Was selected to be the first ESA parastronaut. With the rise of space tourism , NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency agreed to use the term " spaceflight participant " to distinguish those space travelers from professional astronauts on missions coordinated by those two agencies. While no nation other than Russia (and previously the Soviet Union), the United States, and China have launched

12540-515: Was the establishment of the annual International Astronautical Congress in 1950, and the subsequent founding of the International Astronautical Federation the following year. NASA applies the term astronaut to any crew member aboard NASA spacecraft bound for Earth orbit or beyond. NASA also uses the term as a title for those selected to join its Astronaut Corps . The European Space Agency similarly uses

12654-662: Was the first crewed spacecraft to orbit another celestial body, and Apollo 11 was the first crewed spacecraft to land humans on one. Overall, the Apollo program returned 842 pounds (382 kg) of lunar rocks and soil to Earth, greatly contributing to the understanding of the Moon's composition and geological history. The program laid the foundation for NASA's subsequent human spaceflight capability and funded construction of its Johnson Space Center and Kennedy Space Center . Apollo also spurred advances in many areas of technology incidental to rocketry and human spaceflight, including avionics , telecommunications, and computers. The program

12768-403: Was the only component of the Apollo spacecraft to survive without major configuration changes as the program evolved from the early Apollo study designs. Its exterior was covered with an ablative heat shield , and had its own reaction control system (RCS) engines to control its attitude and steer its atmospheric entry path. Parachutes were carried to slow its descent to splashdown. The module

12882-539: Was upgraded to 7,610,000 pounds-force (33,900 kN). The second and third stages burned liquid hydrogen; the third stage was a modified version of the S-IVB, with thrust increased to 230,000 pounds-force (1,020 kN) and capability to restart the engine for translunar injection after reaching a parking orbit . Astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek ἄστρον ( astron ), meaning 'star', and ναύτης ( nautes ), meaning 'sailor')

12996-487: Was used. The word may have been inspired by "aeronaut", an older term for an air traveler first applied in 1784 to balloonists . An early use of "astronaut" in a non-fiction publication is Eric Frank Russell 's poem "The Astronaut", appearing in the November 1934 Bulletin of the British Interplanetary Society . The first known formal use of the term astronautics in the scientific community

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