The Voyager Golden Records are two phonograph records that were included aboard both Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977. The records contain sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and are intended...

Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first humans on the Moon, Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, on July 20, 1969, at 20:18 UTC. Armstrong became the first to step onto the lunar surface six hours later on July 21 at 02:56...

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the United States government agency that is responsible for the civilian space program as well as for aeronautics and aerospace research. President Dwight D. Eisenhower establis...

Sputnik 1 or Elementary Satellite-1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was a 58 cm (23 in) diameter polished metal sphere, with four external radio antennas to broadcast radio pulses. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptica...

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human being to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on April 12, 1961. Gagarin became an international celebrity, a...

As spacecraft commander for Apollo 11, the first piloted lunar landing mission, Armstrong gained the distinction of being the first person to step on the surface of the Moon. On July 16, 1969, Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin E. "Buzz"...

Ernest Shackleton's Trans-Antarctica expedition of 1914 - 1917 is one of the most incredible adventure stories of all time. It is remarkable even for an era and region that already has far more than its fair share of incredible tales of her...

Sir Robert Falson Scott's last journey to Antarctica, and his race for the South Pole. On November 1st 1911, twelve men, each with a pony and sledge, left Cape Evans in detachments. This included the final party of five that would push o...

Hiram Bingham III was an American academic, explorer and politician. He rediscovered the Inca settlement of Machu Picchu in 1911. Later, Bingham served as Governor of Connecticut and a member of the United States Senate. Machu Picchu ha...

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton was a polar explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic, and one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Born in Kilkea, Athy, County Kildare, Irel...

Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He led the Antarctic expedition of 1910–1912 which was the first to reach the South Pole. They arrived at the South Pole on 14 December 1911, 35 days before Scott...

Captain Robert Falcon Scott was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery Expedition (1901–1904) and the ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition (1910–1913). On the first expedition, h...

Adrien de Gerlache, Belgian naval officer and explorer. Sailing with Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen who would later be the first to reach the South Pole, Gerlache led a scientific expedition to Antarctica in 1897–99. During the expeditio...

Matthew Alexander Henson was an American explorer and associate of Robert Peary during various expeditions, the most famous being a 1909 expedition which claimed to be the first to reach the Geographic North Pole. Henson met Commander Ro...

Sven Anders Hedin was a Swedish geographer, topographer, explorer, photographer, and travel writer, as well as an illustrator of his own works. During four expeditions to Central Asia he discovered the Transhimalaya (once named the Hedin Ra...