Astronaut A stronauts rocket to work at speeds of more than 24,200 miles per hour 38,946 kph They work more than 40 hours a week They go on missions that last 3 6 or even 12 months Astronaut Barry Wilmore works outside the International Space Station on February 21 2015 4
Astronauts must be smart strong fearless and patient Mission training may last up to three years They must be able to handle stressful and dangerous tasks They must be willing to die for their job XTREME FACT In 2013 more than 6,100 astronaut candidates ASCANs applied to NASA Eight were accepted 5
History T he first United States astronauts were the Mercury Seven They were chosen in April 1959 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA The first American to fly in space was Alan Shepard on May 5 1961 MERCURY SEVEN-First U S Astronauts Alan Shepard Gus Grissom Gordon Cooper Wally Schirra Deke Slayton John Glenn Scott Carpenter 6
Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space on April 12 1961 He orbited the Earth in his Vostok 1 spacecraft The first men to set foot on the Moon were Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on July 20 1969 From 1959 to 2013 there have been only 330 United States astronauts They worked for NASA’s Mercury Gemini Apollo Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs As of 2014 there are 43 active astronauts and 8 astronauts-in-training 7
