Katherine Johnson (August 26, 1918 – February 24, 2020) was an American mathematician whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. Crewed spaceflights. During her 35-year career at NASA and its predecessor, she earned a reputation for mastering complex manual calculations and helped pioneer the use of computers to.

Laika, the first dog in space, in the Sputnik 2 capsule.On November 3, 1957, Laika (meaning “barker” in Russian) traveled aboard the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2, becoming the first animal to orbit Earth and paving the way for human spaceflight. The canine cosmonaut made her historic mission just one month after the launch of the Soviet Union’s unmanned artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, which signaled the world’s entrance into the space age. A small, female mutt (or “muttnik” as she was dubbed in America), Laika was a stray before being captured and trained along with other potential space dogs; the Soviets preferred to use strays because they tended to be heartier than house-bound hounds.

Although Soviet officials initially claimed Laika survived aboard Sputnik 2 for about a week before perishing, in 2002 it was revealed she died a few hours after blastoff due to overheating and stress. After circling Earth more than 2,000 times, Sputnik 2, with Laika’s remains inside, burned up upon re-entering the planet’s atmosphere in April 1958. In August 1960, Soviet space dogs Belka and Strelka became the first animals to circle Earth and survive. Less than a year later, on April 12, 1961, Soviet pilot Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. Eight years after that, on July 20, 1969, the Americans put the first man on the moon with NASA’s Apollo 11 mission. Cher Ami, the carrier pigeon who saved U.S.

Troops in World War IDuring the war, Cher Ami (“dear friend” in French), a Black Check Cock carrier pigeon, was one of hundreds of birds used by the U.S. Army Signal Corps in France to transport important messages (placed in canisters attached to the birds) from commanders in the battlefield. In October 1918, Cher Ami, despite being badly wounded by enemy gunfire, delivered a message to American forces from U.S. Charles Whittlesey’s “Lost Battalion” of the 77th Infantry Division, which was trapped on the side of a hill in northeastern France during the Meuse-Argonne offensive, surrounded by enemy soldiers while being barraged by friendly fire from the Americans, who were unsure of the battalion’s location. Although the Germans shot at and hit Cher Ami after he took flight, the winged warrior nevertheless managed to return to his home coop and deliver a message from Whittlesey containing his men’s location. As a result, the Lost Battalion was saved, and Cher Ami later was awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French government. After he died in June 1919, the famous bird was preserved by a taxidermist and put on display at the Smithsonian.

If you were born after the Apollo program, and maybe even if you remember those days, it seems almost unbelievable that NASA sent manned missions to the moon 239,000 miles away. People continue to express sadness at the fact that the Apollo lunar missions were so long ago, and that soon there will be no one left alive who actually went to the moon. We celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, now is the perfect time to remember—or get to know—the only 12 people who ever walked on a body other than planet Earth.

Neil Armstrong. NASA/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGESNavy test pilot, engineer, and Korean War veteran left the Navy in 1952, but continued in the Naval Reserve. He worked as an experimental test pilot for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) beginning in 1955, which evolved into NASA. Armstrong was assigned as an astronaut in 1962, and flew on the Gemini 8 mission in 1966, where he performed the first successful space docking procedure.

Armstrong was selected to be the first man to walk on the moon, as the Apollo 11 mission was planned, for: he was the commander of the mission, he didn't have a big ego, and the door of the lunar lander was on his side. Although the first steps on the moon are what he will always be known for, Armstrong considered the mission's biggest accomplishment was. He later,Pilots take no special joy in walking: pilots like flying. Pilots generally take pride in a good landing, not in getting out of the vehicle.Armstrong along with his crew were honored with parades, awards, and acclaim after their return to Earth, but Armstrong always gave credit to the entire NASA team for the Apollo moon missions. He resigned from NASA in 1971 and became a professor of of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Cincinnati for eight years. Armstrong served on the boards of many corporations and foundations, but gradually withdrew from publicity tours and autograph signings.

He didn't particularly care for fame.died on August 25, 2012, at age 82. His family released a that concluded:“For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request. Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink.” 2. Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin.

Nasa/Getty ImagesAfter graduating third in his class at West Point in 1951 with a degree in science, flew 66 combat missions as an Air Force pilot in the Korean War. Then he earned a PhD at MIT. Aldrin joined NASA as an astronaut in 1963.

In 1966 he flew in the Gemini 12 spacecraft on the final Gemini mission.Aldrin accompanied Neil Armstrong on the first moon landing in the Apollo 11 mission, becoming the second person, and now the first of the living astronauts, to set foot on the moon. Aldrin had taken a home Communion kit with him, and, but did not broadcast the fact. Aldrin retired from NASA in 1971 and from the Air Force in 1972. He later suffered from clinical depression and wrote about the experience, but recovered with treatment. Aldrin has five books about his experiences and the space program, plus two novels. Aldrin, who is now 89 years old, continues to work to promote space exploration.

Charles 'Pete' Conrad. Space Frontiers/Getty Imageswas a Princeton graduate and Navy test pilot before entering the astronaut corps in 1962. He flew on the Gemini V mission and was commander of Gemini XI. Conrad was commander of the Apollo 12 mission, launched during a lightning storm which temporarily knocked out the command module's power shortly after liftoff.

When Conrad stepped onto the moon,Whoopee! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me.Conrad later flew on the Skylab 2 mission as commander with the first crew to board the space station. He retired from NASA and the Navy in 1973, after which he worked for American Television and Communications Company and then for McDonnell Douglas.Pete Conrad died on July 8, 1999 in a motorcycle accident. Space Frontiers/Getty ImagesApollo astronaut was the fourth man to walk on the moon, during the Apollo 12 mission in 1969. He was the lunar module pilot. Bean was also the commander of the Skylab Mission II in 1973, which spent 59 days in flight.

Altogether, Bean logged 1,671 hours and 45 minutes in space. Bean is the only artist to have visited another world, so his paintings of the lunar environment have the authenticity of an eyewitness. He retired from the Navy with the rank of Captain, but continued to train astronauts at NASA until 1981, when he to devote time to his art.Bean died on May 26, 2018 at the age of 86.

Alan Shepard. Hulton Archive/Getty Imageswas a bona-fide space pioneer who cemented his spot in history long before the Apollo program. Navy test pilot, he was selected as one of the original Mercury astronauts in 1959. Shepard was the first American launched into space aboard the Freedom 7 spacecraft on May 5, 1961. His suborbital flight reached an altitude of 116 miles.Barred from flight during the Gemini program because of an inner ear problem, Shepard had the problem fixed surgically and was assigned as commander of the Apollo 14 mission to the moon. He was responsible for the most accurate lunar module landing ever, and spent 9 hours and 17 minutes exploring the moon's surface outside the module. During that time, he famously knocked a couple of golf balls with a six-iron attached to his sample-collecting tool.

With one arm (due to the space suit), he managed to drive further than professional golfers on Earth could ever hope to, thanks to the moon's lower gravity.Before and after his Apollo mission, Shepard served as Chief of the Astronaut Office. He retired from NASA and the Navy in 1974, having achieved the rank of Rear Admiral. Shepard went into private business, serving on the board of several corporations and foundations. He founded Seven Fourteen Enterprises, an umbrella corporation named after his two space missions. Shepard wrote a book with Deke Slayton,. Shepard compared his book to The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe, 'We wanted to call ours 'The Real Stuff,' since his was just fiction.' 'Alan Shepard died on July 21, 1998 at the age of 74.

NASA/Keystone/Getty Imagesjoined the Navy in 1952 and became a test pilot. Then he earned a PhD in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT. NASA selected him for the astronaut corps in 1966. In January of 1971, Mitchell flew on Apollo 14 as lunar module pilot, becoming the sixth man to walk on the lunar surface. He retired in 1972 and founded the, which explores psychic and paranormal events.

Mitchell gained some notoriety after NASA for, as he has asserted that the government is covering up evidence at Roswell. His information, he admitted, came secondhand from various sources.Mitchell on February 4, 2016, the eve of the 45th anniversary of his lunar landing.7. NASA/Liaison via Getty Images Plusjoined the Air Force after graduating from West Point. Selected as an astronaut in 1963, he flew with Neil Armstrong on the Gemini 8 mission and was command module pilot on Apollo 9. Scott then went to the moon on Apollo 15, which landed on the lunar surface on July 30, 1971. It was the first mission to land near mountains.

Scott and Jim Irwin spent 18 hours exploring the lunar landscape in the in the first mission to use such a vehicle to travel on the moon.Scott became famous for the in which he took unauthorized postage stamp covers to the moon with the intent to sell them afterwards. NASA had turned a blind eye to such activities before, but publicity over the matter caused them to and he never flew again. Scott retired from NASA in 1977 and served as a consultant for several movies and TV shows about the space program. He also wrote a book with former cosmonaut Alexei Leonov,: Our Story of the Cold War Space Race.David Scott is 87 years old. NASA/Public Domain,Air Force test pilot became an astronaut in 1966. He was the lunar module pilot for Apollo 15 in 1971.

His 18.5 hours of lunar surface exploration included gathering many samples of rocks. The astronauts' medical conditions were being monitored from Earth, and they noticed Irwin symptoms of heart trouble. As he was breathing 100% oxygen and under lower gravity than on Earth, mission control decided he was in the best environment possible for such irregularity -under the circumstances. Irwin's heart rhythm was normal by the time Apollo 15 returned to Earth, but he had a heart attack a few months later. Irwin retired from NASA and the Air Force (with the rank of Colonel) in 1972 and founded the in order to spread the Christian gospel during the last twenty years of his life. He notably took several groups on to Mt.

Ararat to search for Noah's Ark.James Irwin died on August 8, 1991, of a heart attack. He was 61 years old.

John Watts Young. Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Imagesis so far the longest serving astronaut in NASA history. He was selected as an astronaut in 1962 and his first space flight was in 1965 aboard Gemini 3 with Gus Grissom. He achieved some notoriety at that time by a corned beef sandwich onto the flight, angering NASA. But Young went on to complete a total of six space missions in the Gemini, Apollo, and the space shuttle programs. He orbited the moon on the Apollo 10 mission, then was commander of the Apollo 16 mission and became the ninth person to walk on the moon.

Young was also commander of the first space shuttle flight in 1981 and returned for shuttle flight 9 in 1983, which deployed the first Spacelab module. Young was also scheduled for another space shuttle flight in 1986, which was delayed after the Challenger disaster, so the veteran astronaut never made his seventh flight. Young finally retired from NASA after 42 years of service in 2004.John Young on January 5, 2018 at the age of 87 following complications with pneumonia. By, Public Domain,Astronaut was capcom during the Apollo 11 mission. His is you recall saying, 'Roger, Twank. Tranquility, we copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue.

We're breathing again. Thanks a lot!' When the lunar module landed on the moon.

Duke also made history by catching German measles while training in the backup crew for the, exposing the crew to the disease and causing Ken Mattingly to be replaced by Jack Swigart on that terrifying spaceflight. Duke went to the moon (with Mattingly as command module pilot) on the Apollo 16 mission in April of 1972. He retired from NASA in 1975 having reached the rank of Brigadier General in the U.S. Air Force, and founded Duke Investments. Duke also became a Christian and a lay minister to prison inmates.Charles Duke is 83 years old.

Harrison 'Jack' Schmitt. Space Frontiers/Getty Imageswas a geologist first, and trained as a pilot only after becoming a NASA astronaut. In fact, he was only the second civilian to fly into space, after Neil Armstrong, who was a veteran at the time of his flights. Schmitt was assigned to fly to the moon on the Apollo 18 mission, but when the Apollo 18 and 19 missions were cancelled in September of 1970, the scientific community lobbied to have Schmitt reassigned to Apollo 17 (replacing Joe Engle) as lunar module pilot. He was the in outer space.

On the Apollo 17 mission, he and Gene Cernan spent three days on the lunar surface (a record) and drove their Lunar Roving Vehicle around collecting samples, conducting experiments, and leaving measuring instruments behind. Schmitt and Cernan gathered 250 pounds of lunar material to take back.After resigning from NASA in 1975, Schmitt, a Republican, was elected Senator for New Mexico and served from 1977 to 1983.

He became an adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and lives in Silver City, New Mexico. In recent years, Dr.

Schmitt's scientific background and political leanings have kept him in the spotlight as he has said that the concept of climate change is 'a red herring,' and that is linked with communism.Jack Schmitt is 84 years old. NASA/Getty ImagesAs a Navy pilot, logged over 5,000 hours flying time. He was accepted into the astronaut program in 1963. Cernan's first space flight was on Gemini IX in 1966, in which he conducted extravehicular activities (a space walk), followed by the Apollo 10 mission in May of 1969, which orbited the moon. Cernan was assigned commander of the Apollo 17 mission before anyone knew it would be the last Apollo mission. Even after the Apollo program was cut, no one knew for sure that travel to the moon would be abandoned for decades. When Schmitt and Cernan boarded their lunar module for the last time on December 13th, 1972,:'I'm on the surface; and, as I take man's last step from the surface, back home for some time to come — but we believe not too long into the future — I'd like to just say what I believe history will record.

That America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return: with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17.' Cernan retired from the Navy and from NASA in 1976.

He went on to found an aerospace technology firm, and wrote a book about his experiences as an astronaut. He also contributed his talents to as a commentator during shuttle flights and has made appearances on various space specials. In September of 2011, Cernan before Congress on the future of the space program.The space program has never been an entitlement, it's an investment in the future - an investment in technology, jobs, international respect and geo-political leadership, and perhaps most importantly in the inspiration and education of our youth.

Those best and brightest minds at NASA and throughout the multitudes of private contractors, large and small, did not join the team to design windmills or redesign gas pedals, but to live their dreams of once again taking us where no man has gone before.Gene Cernan died on January 16, 2017.This story has been updated for 2019. The Hubble Space Telescope was launched into orbit on April 24, 1990, and it has spent the last three decades enriching our understanding of the cosmos more than we ever could’ve imagined. This year, is the telescope's 30th birthday with another launch: a that shows you a photo of what the Hubble saw on your birthday.Because the telescope is exploring space every hour of every day, the images it has captured over the years are both fascinating and varied. You could see a globular star cluster, a dust storm on, or something else entirely. You only need to enter the date and month of your birthday on the site, so the image you get won’t necessarily be from the year you were born—and, if you were born before 1990, it definitely won’t be—but it’s pretty fun to juxtapose how you were spending that particular birthday with how the Hubble was spending it. While your parents were snapping a shot of you blowing out the candles at your eighth birthday party, for example, the Hubble might’ve been snapping a shot of the beautiful auroras around Jupiter’s north pole.The was first all the way back in 1946 by Yale University astrophysicist Lyman Spitzer, Jr., who published a paper about the possible advantages of having what he called a “large space telescope” in orbit to help astronomers study the galaxies. The project finally got off the ground in the 1970s, and the telescope was designed so that astronauts could periodically upgrade it while still in orbit.

Since it first broke through the atmosphere in 1990, the Hubble—named after astronomer Edwin Hubble, who proved the existence of other galaxies beyond the Milky Way—has taught us that the universe is 14 billion years old, that its expansion is speeding up, and.Unlock your birthday image on the Hubble website, and check out more stellar photos taken by the Hubble. If you've grown tired of, and, take a break from staring at your screens to look up at. Starting in April, the Lyrid meteor shower will make its annual appearance. Here's what you need to know to see the spectacle from wherever you're quarantined.

What are the Lyrids?With written evidence of the event dating back to, the Lyrids are one of the oldest meteor showers on record. The light show occurs when our planet passes through the tail of the comet, causing its to burn up in the atmosphere.From Earth, the Lyrids appear to originate from the constellation Lyra, which rises above the northeastern horizon after dusk, and the meteor shower borrows its name from the constellation. The Lyrids aren't as active as some other annual showers, usually maxing out at just 20 shooting stars per hour on peak nights. But patient spectators are sometimes rewarded: The event has been known to have outbursts of up to 100 meteors in a single hour. Such surges are rare and random, so all sky-gazers can do is look up at peak times and hope to get lucky.

How to See the Lyrid Meteor ShowerThe Lyrids start every year around April 16, but your best chance at seeing them comes later in the month. Late April 21 through early April 22, the meteor shower is predicted to reach peak activity. Following that period, the shooting stars from the shower will become less frequent before finally fizzling out around April 25.The Lyrids may be easier to spot in 2020 than in recent years.

Since businesses closed and people started sheltering in their homes, there has been a slight dip in. Those darker, clearer skies will create better conditions for spotting shooting stars in some parts of the country., waiting until skies are darkest—in the hours around midnight, typically—is the best way to boost your chances of seeing as many meteors as possible.