David Scott was the seventh person to walk on the Moon, the first to drive on it, and the last American to fly solo in Earth’s orbit.
Educated at West Point, he earned two degrees from MIT after joining the air force and graduating from the US Air Force Test Pilot School. He was then selected by NASA to be an astronaut, during which time he completed three space missions. He performed the first successful docking of two space vehicles with Neil Armstrong during the 1966 Gemini 8 mission. He served as command module pilot for Apollo 9, and was spacecraft commander of Apollo 15 in 1971, the fourth successful manned lunar landing mission, during which he spent a record three days on the lunar surface.
He worked on the joint USA/USSR Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, was director of the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, and was a technical adviser on the film Apollo 13 and Tom Hanks’ award-winning series From the Earth to the Moon.
His awards include three NASA Distinguished Service Medals, the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, two Air Force Distinguished Service Medals, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the United Nations Peace Medal (1971).
Alexei Leonov was born in Siberia in 1934. He was among the first group of cosmonauts selected in 1960 and flew two space missions: first as pilot of Voskhod 2 in 1965 and then in 1975 as commander of Soyuz 19 during the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. He is currently vice president of Russia’s Alpha Bank.
