Top 5 Facts: Important spacemen

© SpaceX

Elon Musk

Elon Musk is the founder and CEO of SpaceX and views space exploration as an important step in preserving the human race. He wants to set foot on Mars by 2030.

Gene Kranz

NASA’s flight director during the Apollo moon landings, Gene Kranz is best known for managing the successful rescue effort of the famous Apollo 13 crew.

Neil Armstrong

His first successful space flight in 1966 performed the manned docking of two spacecraft, while his second mission in 1969 made him the first man on the moon.

Carl Sagan

Popularised space for the masses in the Eighties with his TV series Cosmos, and is famed for his description of the Earth as an insignificant ‘pale blue dot’ in space.

Wernher von Braun

Often cited as the greatest rocket engineer in history, von Braun was the chief architect of the Saturn V rocket that took Americans to the moon.