Tag: astronauts

Today in 1923, the birthday of Alan Shepard. He was the first American in space, and the first person to ever play golf on the Moon.

For National Photography Day, here’s a remarkable photographic story from the 1890s: a guy in Norway made his own candid camera.

Today in 1939, the birthday of Wally Funk. She first passed astronaut training in her 20s and could have been one of the first US astronauts, but after some 60 years of trying, she finally got into space.

Today in 1963, a black and white cat from the streets of France became the first cat to go into space. She didn't choose to go, of course, but she's a pioneer just the same - and until a few years ago, a greatly underappreciated one.

For National Hispanic Heritage Month, here's the story of the first Hispanic woman in space, Ellen Ochoa, talented and versatile even by astronaut standards.

A broken switch threatened to keep Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin from returning to Earth. Fortunately, they had a solution: office supplies.

There was a story recently about how NASA was partnering with Tide laundry detergent to work on a way to do laundry in space. Which means we don’t already do laundry in space, and there are some pretty big reasons why.

On this day in 1973, something happened aboard the Skylab space station. Depending on who you talk to, it was somewhere between a "sensitivity session" between astronauts and ground crew, and a full-on space mutiny.

If you're an astronaut, way up there in space, chances are you started the day with a song. Why? It's a NASA tradition.

On this day in 1839 we first saw the word we use so often to describe our most middling feelings. That’s right, it’s the birthday of OK.

Today is the birthday of Jerrie Cobb, who could have been the first woman in space but ended up flying to great heights nonetheless.

This week marks 50 years since the Apollo 12 mission, the second time humans went to the moon and the first time we launched an artificial earthquake there.