Stargazing Guy

Were you following a weekly list of forthcoming astronaut* birthdays?

Did you share a birthday?!

If not, perhaps it will be you who adds your name to the list?! Or maybe, one of the 100+ additional astronauts has beaten you?! These astronauts have flown since this original list was pulled together.

We have started listing all the newer astronauts, but not in birthday order. We are now using date order. It starts with 22 July 2015 – see Do you share a birthday with an astronaut? (no.54) – and comes up to date with the most recent astronauts. This is based on the details published by supercluster.com.

If you do share a birthday, what does it mean to you?

Do you feel a connection, pride? They take to the skies (on controlled explosions) to improve the world, to explore (to travel to strange new worlds).

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The first four people named here are employees of Virgin Galactic (VG). It is a private spaceflight company which is developing sub-orbital space tourism flights.

These astronauts crossed the NASA Space Line (50 miles/80.5 km), for a few minutes. This is the minimum altitude at which NASA considers a person to have flown in outer space.

9 November 1958 Mark P Stucky (VG) US. Stucky and co-pilot Frederick Sturckow flew VSS Unity VP-03, a Virgin Galactic test flight which reached an apogee of 82.7 km (51.4 mi), on 13 December 2018. This surpassed the United States convention for the boundary of outer space, 50 mi / 80.47 km, but fell short of the Kármán line 100 km / 62.14 mi, the internationally recognized boundary. The flight was notable as an uncommon example of a high-altitude flight with an apogee falling between the two altitudes. Other examples include eleven flights of the North American X-15 and Soyuz MS-10, an aborted spaceflight which had occurred weeks earlier.

1 January 1957 David W D Mackay (VG) UK. Mackay (born 1957 – full date to follow) is the Chief Pilot of Virgin Galactic. He is a commercial astronaut and a former RAF test pilot.

Birth date unknown Mike Masucci (VG) US. Masucci is a test pilot for Virgin Galactic and a commercial astronaut.

29 May 1969 Beth Moses (VG) US. Moses is Chief Astronaut Instructor and Interiors Program Manager for Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo program and is a commercial astronaut.

29 January 1979 Christina H Koch (NASA) US. Koch set a record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman with a total of 328 days in space, between 14 March 2019 and 6 February 2020.

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Thanks to www.supercluster.com for the bios and links.

Also, thanks to www.pillownaut.com for the first list of birthdays, and the many, many resources on the internet, especially Wikipedia and NASA.      

* = includes cosmonaut, taikonaut, parastronaut, spaceflight participant, space tourist, etc

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PS: I love coffee. BuyMeACoffee. Leave a message with a date and time. We can share it remotely, at the same time, and think about the Cosmos.

In the meantime, take care of yourself and if you can, someone else, too, because as Adam Smith said, “we naturally desire not only to be loved but to be lovely”.

Remember, hope lives here.

Contact Stargazing Guy for any copyright-related requests or queries @ stargazer1@stargazingguy.co.uk