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They were the pioneers of space exploration – the 24 Nasa astronauts who travelled to the Moon in the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s.
Now, in 2024, the race to put people back on the lunar surface is set to heat up once again.
On Monday, United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur – one of the private competitors to Elon Musk’s SpaceX – is scheduled to take off on its maiden Moon mission, carrying Astrobotic’s Peregrine 1. Peregrine aims to be the first US craft to make a soft lunar landing since the Apollo programme.
And, in November, Nasa hopes to launch Artemis 2, its first crewed lunar expedition in more than 50 years. It hopes the new programme will lead to astronauts living on the Moon this decade. China is also hoping to have people on the lunar surface by 2030.
These planned launches highlight the sad fact that the number of remaining Apollo astronauts is dwindling. The programme’s Ken Mattingly and Frank Borman died within a few days of each other late last year.
Now only eight people who have voyaged beyond the Earth’s orbit remain. Who are they, and what are their stories?
On 21 July 1969, former fighter pilot Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin left his lunar landing craft and became the second person to step on the surface of the Moon. Almost 20 minutes beforehand, his commander, Neil Armstrong, had been the first.
Aldrin’s
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