The most exclusive club in history

What club of individuals have achievements that we can aspire to but is largely out of reach for the majority?

How about the men, and it has only been men thus far, who have “slipped the surly bonds of the earth” to walk on another world?

There are 12 men who have walked on the moon, seven of whom are still alive. All of them are (or were) Americans, and studied either aeronautical or astronautical engineering. Many served as pilots in the cold war, and some even flew planes carrying nuclear warheads, spiders and quails.

Neil Armstrong

First man on the moon. Before joining NASA, he was a fighter pilot in the Korean War. He left the space agency after going to the moon and lived a relatively quiet life afterwards. He died in 2012 at the age of 82.

John Young

He went to the moon on Apollo 16, and became the first person to go to space six times. He has piloted several of NASA’s space craft.

Alan Shepard

He was the commander of the Apollo 14 shuttle and was the second person to travel to space after cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. At the age of 47, he became the oldest person ever to walk on the moon. He died of leukaemia in 1998.

Buzz Aldrin

Like his Apollo 11 crewmate, he also flew in the American Air force during the Korean War in the 1950s. He has been a promoter of space travel, famously saying that NASA should “Get its a** to Mars”. He was the second man on the moon.

Edgar Mitchell

He threw a javelin on the moon. He spent his later life investigating paranormal occurrences. He was 86 when he died in February this year.

Harrison Schmitt

The geologist is the only person without a background in the American military to have walked on the moon. The picture he took of the earth from the moon is the most reproduced photograph in history. He once  served as a US senator for the state of New Mexico.

David Scott More

He travelled to the moon on Apollo 15 and drove the first lunar rover on the surface of the moon.

Charlie Duke

At 36 years, he became the youngest man to ever walk on the moon in 1972.

Jim Irwin

He was part of the Apollo 15 flight and when he died in 1991, he was 61. He was the first of the moonwalkers to die.

Gene Cernan

The former pilot is the last man to have walked on the moon in 1972.

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The DARING 10: Interesting Facts 

Michael Masimino (@Astro_Mike)

First man to tweet from space while aboard the shuttle Atlantis in 2009. 

5

Number of centimetres you grow in space due to the reduced gravity. 

Tuesday 12/04

was International Day of Human Space Flight and the 55th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s space trip. Gagarin was the first man in space. 

Animals that have been to Space:

Chimps, geckos, rats, cats, dogs, tortoises, spiders and quails