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The 20 Most Influential Astronauts of All Time

A few explorers have broadened the prospect of human exploration and discovery by pushing beyond the limitations of our planet and into the vastness of space. The astronauts are fearless explorers who defy gravity and embrace the unknown as they soar beyond space.

They bravely embarked on perilous expeditions, donning spacesuits and marvelling at the celestial regions. They inspire future generations to dream big and reach for the heavens by leaving their mark on history with each step and weightless manoeuvre.

From the momentous first steps on the moon to risky spacewalks and orbital missions, these daring explorers personify human ingenuity and serve as a continual reminder that the extraordinary is possible even in space.

1. Yuri Gagarin – Soviet Union

Yuri Gagarin with awards.jpg , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Gagarin, a native of the Russian SFSR hamlet of Klushino, used to work as a foundryman at a steel firm in Lyubertsy. He eventually enlisted in the Soviet Air Forces as a pilot and was posted to the Luostari Air Base near the Norwegian-Soviet border before being picked for the Soviet space program alongside five other cosmonauts.

Following his space flight, Gagarin worked as the deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre, which was eventually named after him. In 1962, he was elected to the Soviet Union and afterwards to the Soviet of Nationalities, the lower and upper chambers of the Supreme Soviet.

On the first successful crewed trip, Soviet cosmonaut and pilot Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin became the first person to travel into space. Gagarin orbited the Earth once in Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961. He was awarded several decorations and titles, including the country’s highest honour, Hero of the Soviet Union, for achieving this crucial Space Race milestone for the Soviet Union.

2. Neil Armstrong – United States

Neil Armstrong pose.jpg , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Armstrong was born and reared in Wapakoneta, Ohio. He enrolled at Purdue University to study aeronautical engineering, with financing supplied by the United States Navy under the Holloway Plan. He was a midshipman in 1949 and a naval aviator in 1950. He flew the Grumman F9F Panther out of the USS Essex during the Korean War.

After the war, he completed his bachelor’s degree at Purdue and began working as a test pilot at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics High-Speed Flight Station at Edwards Air Force Base in California. He flew the North American X-15 seven times while working as a project pilot for Century Series fighters. He also participated in the US Air Force’s X-20 Dyna-Soar program.

Armstrong was among the second group of astronauts selected by NASA in 1962. As the command pilot of Gemini 8, he made his first space flight in March 1966, becoming NASA’s first civilian astronaut. He became the first man to walk on the moon in 1969. He was also a naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor.

Read On Top 10 Fascinating Facts about Neil Armstrong

3. Buzz Aldrin – United States

Buzz Aldrin (S69-31743).jpg , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Aldrin, a mechanical engineer from Glen Ridge, New Jersey, graduated third in his class at the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1951. He joined the United States Air Force and flew jet fighters during the Korean War. He flew 66 combat sorties and shot down two MiG-15s.

He has previously worked as a fighter pilot, engineer, and astronaut. He did three spacewalks as the leader of the Gemini 12 mission in 1966. He was the Lunar Module Eagle’s pilot during the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, and following mission commander Neil Armstrong, he was the second person to step foot on the moon.

Aldrin became the first astronaut with a doctorate after receiving a Doctor of Science in astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and being chosen as a member of NASA’s Astronaut Group 3. He acquired the moniker “Dr Rendezvous” from his fellow astronauts thanks to his dissertation thesis, Line-of-Sight Guidance Techniques for Manned Orbital Rendezvous. During his first space mission, Gemini 12 in 1966, he engaged in extravehicular activity for more than five hours.

4. Valentina Tereshkova – Soviet Union

Valentina Tereshkova (2017-03-06).jpg , , via Wikimedia Commons

Engineer Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova was the first woman in space and is a member of Russia’s State Duma. She is notable for becoming the first and youngest woman in space, having travelled solo onboard the Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963. She is the only woman to have performed a solo space flight and the last surviving Vostok program Cosmonaut. She orbited the Earth 48 times and was in space for approximately three days.

Tereshkova worked at a textile mill and was an amateur skydiver before being selected for the Soviet space program. She joined the Air Force in the Cosmonaut Corps and received an officer’s commission after finishing her training.

Until the first crew of female cosmonauts disbanded in 1969, Tereshkova remained active in the space program as a cosmonaut instructor. Though she was eventually qualified for space travel after receiving her engineering degree from the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy, she never went into space. She became a major general in the Air Force before departing in 1997.

Read On Top 10 Remarkable Facts about Valentina Tereshkova

5. John Glenn – United States

John Glenn Low Res.jpg , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Before joining NASA, Glenn had a distinguished combat record that included service in the Chinese Civil War, the Korean War, and World War II. For downing three MiG-15s, he was awarded six Distinguished Flying Crosses and eighteen Air Medals. In 1957, he performed the nation’s first supersonic cross-country flight. His onboard camera captured the first continuous panoramic photograph of the United States.

Over the years, John Glenn has made multiple NASA movie appearances.
He was among the Mercury Seven, a collection of military test pilots picked by NASA in 1959 to serve as the nation’s first astronauts. On February 20, 1962, Glenn successfully completed the Friendship 7 mission, making him the first American to orbit the Earth, the third American, and the fifth person to ever travel into space.

In 1962, he completed three Earth orbits, becoming the first American to do so and the third American overall. He was an Ohio U.S. Senator from 1974 until 1999 after leaving NASA. At the age of 77, he completed a second space mission in 1998.

6. Sally Ride – United States

Sally Ride in 1984.jpg , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Ride earned a Bachelor of Science in Physics as well as a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Stanford University in 1973. She later received a Master of Science in the topic in 1975 and a Doctor of Philosophy in the subject in 1978 for her research on the interaction of X-rays with the interstellar medium.

NASA Astronaut Group 8, the first class of female NASA astronauts, chose her as a mission specialist astronaut. After completing her training in 1979, she assisted in the development of the Space Shuttle’s robotic arm and served as the ground-based capsule communicator (CapCom) on the second and third Space Shuttle flights. She completed the STS-7 mission in space on the Space Shuttle Challenger in June 1983.

After cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova in 1963 and Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982, she is the first American woman and the third woman to go into space. At 32 years old, she was the eldest American astronaut to have gone into space.

7.  Alexei Leonov – Soviet Union

Leonov Alexei.png , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A major general in the Air Force, cosmonaut for both the Soviet Union and Russia, writer, and artist, Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov. He was the first person to do a spacewalk on March 18, 1965, spending 12 minutes and 9 seconds outside the Voskhod 2 capsule. Even though the project was scrapped, he was chosen to be the first Soviet to set foot on the moon.

Leonov was in charge of the Soyuz spacecraft during the Apollo-Soyuz mission in July 1975, which docked for two days in space with an American Apollo spacecraft.

Leonov was a member of the Supreme Council of the United Russia party (2002–2019), twice honoured as a Hero of the Soviet Union (1965, 1975), a Major General of Aviation (1975), and the recipient of the USSR State Prize in 1981.

8. Jim Lovell – United States

James Lovell.jpg , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Lovell, who graduated from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland in 1952, flew F2H Banshee night fighters. Among them was the deployment of the USS Shangri-La aircraft carrier in the Western Pacific.

In January 1958, he entered in the Class 20 test pilot training program at the Naval Air Test Center at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. He graduated from the six-month program at the top of his class. In 1960, he was promoted to program manager on the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II after working with radar in Electronics Tests.

He piloted Apollo 8’s command module and was one of the first three astronauts, along with William Anders and Frank Borman, to fly to and orbit the Moon in 1968. Despite a severe malfunction en route, the Apollo 13 lunar mission, which he later directed, circled the Moon and returned safely to Earth in 1970.

9. Alan Shepard – United States

Business suit portrait of Al Shepard.jpg , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Shepard, an Annapolis native and USNA graduate, served in the surface Navy during WWII. In 1946, he graduated as a Navy aviator, and in 1950, he acquired his test pilot license. In May 1961, he completed the first crewed Project Mercury mission, Mercury-Redstone 3, with a spacecraft he dubbed Freedom 7.

He was selected as one of the first NASA Mercury Seven astronauts in 1959. Despite travelling across space, his craft was unable to create an orbit. He was the second human to enter space, the first American, and the first to actively control the orientation of his spacecraft. At age 47, he was the sixth and senior astronaut to set foot on the moon in 1971.

10. Chris Hadfield – Canada

Chris Hadfield 2011.jpg , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Chris Austin Hadfield, a former fighter pilot from Canada, has also worked as an astronaut, engineer, musician, and writer. He is the first Canadian to perform in extravehicular activity in space, having flown two Space Shuttle missions and commanding the International Space Station (ISS). Before becoming an astronaut, he served as a fighter pilot in the Canadian Armed Forces for 25 years.

He completed his secondary education in Milton and Oakville, both in southern Ontario, as a cadet with the Royal Canadian Air Force, and got his glider pilot qualification. He attended the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario, after enlisting in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Hadfield acquired his piloting skills in the military, progressing to test pilot status and piloting a number of experimental aircraft. He graduated from the University of Tennessee Space Institute with a master’s in aviation systems as a result of an exchange program with the US Navy and US Air Force.

Hadfield was admitted by the Canadian Space Agency to the nation’s astronaut training program in 1992. As a mission specialist on STS-74, he made his first trip into space in November 1995 to visit the Russian space station, Mir.

In order to assist with the installation of Canadarm2, he visited the International Space Station (ISS) on STS-100 in April 2001. He took off once more on Soyuz TMA-07M in December 2012 to join Expedition 34 on the International Space Station.

When Expedition 34 came to an end in March 2013, Hadfield took over as ISS commander as part of Expedition 35, managing a crew of five astronauts and assisting in the administration of numerous scientific investigations into the effects of low gravity on human biology.

Read On Top 10 Sensational Facts about Chris Hadfield

11. Mae Jemison – United States

Mae Carol Jemison.jpg , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Jemison, who was born in Alabama and raised in Chicago, graduated from Stanford University with degrees in chemical engineering and African and African-American studies. She later earned a medical degree from Cornell University. Jemison worked as a general practitioner for the Peace Corps in Liberia and Sierra Leone from 1983 to 1985. She applied to NASA in the hopes of becoming an astronaut.

She made history as the first African-American woman to visit space when she worked as a mission specialist on board the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992. Jemison joined NASA’s astronaut corps in 1987 and was selected to take part in the STS-47 mission, which took place on September 12-20, 1992, and saw the Endeavour orbit the Earth for nearly eight days.

Read On Top 10 Interesting Facts about Mae C. Jemison

12. Peggy Whitson – United States

Peggy Whitson.jpg , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Peggy Annette Whitson, an American biochemist, was also a former NASA Chief Astronaut, an active Axiom Space astronaut, and a retired NASA astronaut. Whitson has spent 675 days in space, more than any other American or woman.

Her first space voyage occurred in 2002 when she joined Expedition 5 aboard the International Space Station for a lengthy stay. On her second mission, Expedition 16, in 2007-2008, she made history by being the first woman to command the International Space Station.

In 2009, she became the first woman to assume the highest senior position in the NASA Astronaut Corps, Chief Astronaut. Whitson made history in 2017 when she became the first female commander of the International Space Station for the second time. Christina Koch’s 289-day mission was the longest solo female space flight prior to her 328-day trip.

13. Eileen Collins – United States

Commander Eileen Collins – GPN-2000-001177.jpg , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Collins, who graduated from Corning Community College with an Associate of Arts in Mathematics in 1976 and Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics and Economics in 1978, was commissioned as an officer in the USAF through Syracuse’s Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps program.

She was one of four women chosen for undergraduate pilot training at Oklahoma’s Vance Air Force Base. She worked as a T-38 Talon instructional pilot at Vance for three years after earning her pilot’s license before transitioning to the C-141 Starlifter at Travis Air Force Base in California.

Collins was chosen in 1990 to join NASA Astronaut Group 13 as a pilot astronaut. She was the Space Shuttle’s pilot for the 1995 STS-63 mission, which saw Space Shuttle Discovery and the Russian space station Mir engaging in a space rendezvous.

She also served as the STS-84 pilot in 1997. With STS-93, which launched in July 1999 and deployed the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, she made history by being the first woman to pilot a US spacecraft. She was the mission commander of NASA’s “return to flight” mission STS-114, which was launched in 2005 to restock the International Space Station (ISS) and test safety enhancements following the Space Shuttle Columbia accident.

She made history during this mission when she piloted the Space Shuttle orbiter through a full 360-degree pitch movement so that astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) could snap pictures of its belly to make sure there was no danger of debris-related damage during re-entry. She retired as a colonel from the USAF in January 2005 and from NASA in May 2006.

14. Michael Collins – United States

Michael Collins (S69-31742).jpg , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Collins was a member of the Class of 1952 at the United States Military Academy. His father was the American military attaché in Rome, Italy, where he was born. After his father, brother, uncle, and cousin, he joined the military.

He joined the US Air Force and served as an F-86 Sabre jet pilot at Chambley-Bussières Air Base in France. He graduated from the Aerospace Research Pilot School (Class III) in 1960 and was accepted into the United States Air Force Experimental Flight Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base.

Collins travelled twice in space after being chosen to be a member of NASA’s third group of 14 astronauts in 1963. His first space mission, Gemini 10, took place in 1966, during which he and Command Pilot John Young completed two extravehicular activities and an orbital rendezvous with two spacecraft.

He was one of 24 astronauts who flew to the Moon as part of the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, and he completed thirty orbits of the Moon. He was the first person to have done more than one spacewalk, the fourth person and third American to do it, and, following Young, who piloted the command module on Apollo 10, the second person to orbit the Moon by themselves.

15. Scott Kelly – United States

Scott J. Kelly.jpg , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

American engineer, former astronaut, and naval aviator Scott Joseph Kelly is a triple threat. Kelly, a veteran of four space missions, oversaw ISS operations on Expeditions 26, 45, and 46.

Kelly’s first space flight was as the Discovery pilot on STS-103 in December 1999. It was the Hubble Space Telescope’s third servicing mission, lasting just over eight days. Kelly conducted his second space flight as the mission commander of STS-118, a 12-day Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station in August 2007.

Kelly’s third space voyage was as a member of the International Space Station crew during Expedition 25/26. On October 9, 2010, he boarded Soyuz TMA-01M, and after serving as a flight engineer, he took command of the International Space Station (ISS) on November 25, 2010, at the start of Expedition 26. Expedition 26 ended on March 16, 2011, with the departure of Soyuz TMA-01M.

16. Kalpana Chawla – United States

Kalpana Chawla, NASA photo portrait in orange suit.jpg , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Kalpana Chawla was the first woman of Indian heritage to explore space. She was an Indian-American astronaut and aeronautical engineer. She took her first voyage aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1997 as a mission specialist and primary robotic arm operator.

Chawla flew on STS-107, Columbia’s last mission, in 2003. She was one of seven crew members killed when the Space Shuttle Columbia exploded while reentering the Earth on February 1, 2003.

Chawla was awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor after her death, and countless streets, institutions, and other organizations have been named in her honour.

17. Gherman Titov – Soviet Union

Gherman Titov.JPG , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Gherman Stepanovich Titov, a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on Vostok 2 after Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1, became the second person to orbit the Earth on August 6, 1961. Counting the suborbital missions of US astronauts Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom, he was the fourth person to journey to space.

At the time of launch, he was just under 26 years old, making him the youngest space traveller until Oliver Daemen, at 18, travelled on Blue Origin NS-16 in 2021. Titov is the youngest person to have gone into Earth orbit because Daemen only did a suborbital mission.

18. Guion Bluford – United States

Guion Bluford.jpg , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Guion Stewart Bluford Jr. is a retired officer and fighter pilot in the United States Air Force (USAF), a former NASA astronaut, and the first African American to travel to space. He is a native of the United States. He remained a USAF officer while working for NASA, eventually rising to the rank of colonel.

He participated in four Space Shuttle missions between 1983 and 1992. He was the second person of African descent to travel to space after Cuban astronaut Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez in 1983 while serving on the Orbiter Challenger crew for the mission STS-8.

19. Story Musgrave – United States

StoryMusgrave.jpg , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Franklin Story Musgrave, a physician and former NASA astronaut, practices medicine in the country. He works as a consultant and public speaker for Disney’s Imagineering division and California’s Applied Minds.

With six academic degrees, he is the most intellectually qualified astronaut and, as of 1996, the only astronaut to have flown on six space missions. Musgrave is the only astronaut to have travelled on all five Space Shuttles.

20. Kathryn Sullivan – United States

Kathryn D. Sullivan.jpg , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Out of 35 candidates, Sullivan, a 1978 graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz and Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada, was selected as one of six female astronaut candidates for NASA Astronaut Group 8, the first group to include female astronaut candidates.

During her training, she became the first woman to be certified to wear a pressure suit, and on July 1, 1979, she set an unofficial sustained female aviation altitude record in the United States. On her first mission, STS-41-G, Sullivan performed the first extravehicular activity (EVA) by an American woman.

Let us gaze up at the night sky and be in awe of the extraordinary humans who have ventured to leave the comforts of Earth behind. The brave people who have entered space, known as astronauts, epitomize human tenacity, curiosity, and adventure. They have pushed the limits of human comprehension by penetrating the universe’s depths and learning its mysteries.

They encouraged many dreamers and gave us the belief that anything is possible by pursuing their ambitions. They have left us with a legacy of scientific discovery and technological marvels, but they have also left us with a heritage of the boundless human spirit, which has always inspired us to travel, aim high, and leave our mark in the universe.