At 10:56 p.m. EDT, American astronaut Neil Armstrong (above),
240,000 miles from Earth, spoke these words to more than a
billion people listening at home: “That’s one small step for
man, one giant leap for mankind.” Stepping off the lunar
landing module Eagle, Armstrong became the first human to
walk on the surface of the moon.

On June 3, 1965, 120 miles above the Earth, Major Edward H. White
II opened the hatch of the Gemini 4 and stepped out of the capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to walk in space (above). He
was attached to the craft by a 25-foot tether and controlling his movements with  a hand-held oxygen jet-propulsion gun, White
remained outside the capsule for just over 20 minutes. As a space
walker,
White had been preceded by Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei A. Leonov,
who on March 18, 1965, was the first man ever to walk in space.

Edward Higgins White II
(November 14, 1930 – January 27, 1967)

White died on January 27, 1967, alongside astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grissom and Roger B. Chaffee in a fire during pre-launch testing
for Apollo 1 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. He was awarded the
NASA Distinguished Service Medal for his flight in Gemini 4
and posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of
Honor

From Cape Canaveral, Florida, John Herschel Glenn Jr (above).
was successfully launched into space aboard the Friendship 7
spacecraft (above) on the first orbital flight by an American
astronaut. 

Glenn, a decorated lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps,
was among the seven men chosen by the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration (NASA) in 1959 to become the first
American astronauts.

Launching of the Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3) rocket from Cape
Canaveral on astronaut Alan B. Shepard’s Freedom 7 suborbital
mission. 

From Cape Canaveral, Florida, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr.
is launched into space aboard the Freedom 7 space capsule, becoming the
first American astronaut to travel into space. The suborbital flight, which
lasted 15 minutes and reached a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere,
was a major triumph for NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration.

Buzz Aldrin (Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr.) became 89 in January.

(FoxNews) – A number of Apollo 11 artifacts that were owned by Buzz Aldrin
(above) will be up for auction at Sotheby’s later this month.

The Apollo 11 lunar module pilot has consigned 11 items for auction, which
include pages from the mission’s flown flight plan and flown data file. They
include a “Mission Rules Summary; from the Apollo 11 data file, which
details the steps to be followed following a spacecraft malfunction. The
sheet has a pre-sale estimate of $30,000 to $50,000.

The first and last pages of the flown Apollo 11 Flight Plan are also up for
auction. The first page, which begins with the words “LIFTOFF,” has a pre-
sale estimate of $30,000 to $50,000. The final page describes the activities
to be performed during the last 2 hours of the mission and has a pre-sale
estimate of $25,000 to $35,000. All of the sheets in the auction are signed
by Aldrin.