Fallen space heros of 2012

Last year we lost three very important people in the field of space exploration and astronomy.

Sally Ride
May 26, 1951 – July 23, 2012 (aged 61)

Ride
Ride in 1984

She was the first American woman to enter into low Earth orbit in 1983 and remains the youngest American astronaut to be launched into space.

Niel Armstrong
August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012 (aged 82)

Armstrong
Armstrong in 1969

He was the first man to step foot on the Moon way back in 1969. Armstrong’s first space flight, as command pilot of Gemini 8, in 1966, made him NASA’s first civilian astronaut to fly in space.

Patrick Moore
4 March 1923- 9 December 2012 (aged 89)

Patrick
Patrick Moore

Known as the presenter of the world’s longest-running television series with the same original presenter, the BBC’s The Sky at Night. Moore was a former president of the British Astronomical Association. He was a co-founder and former president of the Society for Popular Astronomy (SPA). As an author he wrote over 70 books on astronomy. He was the reason many astronomers here in the UK became astronomers.