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NASA Astronaut Leaves Hospital After ‘Medical Issue’ That Followed Return From Space
• Oct. 26, 2024, 2:40 AM ET (New York Times)
Notable astronauts are listed chronologically in the table.
| name | mission | date | accomplishment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Yury Gagarin | Vostok 1 | April 12, 1961 | first man in space |
 |
Alan Shepard | Mercury-Redstone 3 (Freedom 7) | May 5, 1961 | first American in space |
 |
Gherman Titov | Vostok 2 | Aug. 6–7, 1961 | first to spend more than one day in space; youngest person (25 years old) in space |
 |
John Glenn | Mercury-Atlas 6 (Friendship 7) | Feb. 20, 1962 | first American in orbit |
 |
STS-95 (Discovery) | Oct. 28–Nov. 7, 1998 | oldest person (77 years old) in space | |
 |
Adriyan Nikolayev; Pavel Popovich | Vostok 3; Vostok 4 | Aug. 11–15, 1962; Aug. 12–15, 1962 | first simultaneous flight of two spacecraft |
 |
Valentina Tereshkova | Vostok 6 | June 16–19, 1963 | first woman in space |
 |
Konstantin Feoktistov; Vladimir Komarov; Boris Yegorov | Voshkod 1 | Oct. 12–13, 1964 | first multimanned spacecraft; first doctor in space (Yegorov) |
 |
Aleksey Leonov | Voshkod 2 | March 18–19, 1965 | first person to walk in space |
 |
Roger Chaffee; Virgil Grissom; Edward White II | Apollo 1 | Jan. 27, 1967 | killed in fire while testing spacecraft |
| Vladimir Komarov | Soyuz 1 | April 23–24, 1967 | first spaceflight casualty | |
 |
William Anders; Frank Borman; James Lovell | Apollo 8 | Dec. 21–27, 1968 | first to fly around the Moon |
 |
Neil Armstrong; Edwin ("Buzz") Aldrin | Apollo 11 | July 16–24, 1969 | first to walk on the Moon |
 |
Fred Haise; James Lovell; Jack Swigert | Apollo 13 | April 11–17, 1970 | farthest from Earth (401,056 km [249,205 miles]); survived oxygen-tank explosion |
| Georgy Dobrovolsky; Viktor Patsayev; Vladislav Volkov | Soyuz 11/Salyut 1 | June 6–29, 1971 | first stay on a space station; first to die in space | |
 |
Eugene Cernan; Harrison Schmitt | Apollo 17 | Dec. 7–19, 1972 | last to walk on the Moon |
 |
Vance Brand; Donald Slayton; Thomas Stafford; Valery Kubasov; Aleksey Leonov | Apollo-Soyuz | July 17–19, 1975 | first joint U.S.-Soviet spaceflight |
 |
Sigmund Jähn | Soyuz 31/Salyut 6/Soyuz 29 | Aug. 26–Sept. 3, 1978 | first German astronaut in space |
 |
Jean-Loup Chrétien | Soyuz T-6/Salyut 7 | June 24–July 2, 1982 | first French astronaut in space |
 |
Sally Ride | STS-7 (Challenger) | June 18–24, 1983 | first American woman in space |
 |
Guion Bluford | STS-8 (Challenger) | Aug. 30–Sept. 5, 1983 | first African American in space |
 |
Ulf Merbold | STS-9 (Columbia) | Nov. 28–Dec. 8, 1983 | first ESA astronaut in space |
 |
Rakesh Sharma | Soyuz T-11/Salyut 7 | April 3–11, 1984 | first Indian in space |
 |
Marc Garneau | STS-41-G (Challenger) | Oct. 5–13, 1984 | first Canadian in space |
 |
Franklin Chang-Díaz | STS-61-C (Columbia) | Jan. 12–18, 1986 | first Hispanic American in space |
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Christa McAuliffe | STS-51-L (Challenger) | Jan. 28, 1986 | was to have been the first teacher in space; killed in Challenger explosion |
 |
Akiyama Tohiro | Soyuz TM-11/Mir/Soyuz TM-10 | Dec. 2–10, 1990 | first Japanese in space; first commercial astronaut |
| Helen Sharman | Soyuz TM-12/Mir/Soyuz TM-11 | May 18–26, 1991 | first Briton in space; first non-U.S., non-Russian female astronaut | |
 |
Mae Jemison; Mohri Mamoru | STS-47 (Endeavour) | Sept. 12–20, 1992 | first African American woman in space; first Japanese astronaut in space |
 |
Ellen Ochoa | STS-56 (Discovery) | April 8–17, 1993 | first Hispanic American woman in space |
 |
Valery Polyakov | Soyuz TM-18/Mir/Soyuz TM-20 | Jan. 8, 1994– March 22, 1995 | longest stay in space (438 days) |
 |
Sergey Krikalyov | STS-60 (Discovery) | Feb. 3–11, 1994 | first Russian on U.S. spacecraft |
 |
Eileen Collins | STS-93 (Columbia) | July 23–28, 1999 | first female space shuttle commander |
 |
Dennis Tito | Soyuz TM-32/ISS/Soyuz TM-31 | April 28–May 6, 2001 | first space tourist |
 |
Jerry Ross | STS-110 (Atlantis)/ISS | April 8–19, 2002 | first person to fly into space seven times |
 |
Yang Liwei | Shenzhou 5 | Oct. 15, 2003 | first Chinese astronaut in space |
| Michael Melvill | SpaceShipOne | June 21, 2004 | first private spaceflight | |
 |
Yi So-Yeon | Soyuz TMA-12/ISS/Soyuz TMA-11 | April 8–19, 2008 | first Korean astronaut in space |