The women listed below are or were explorers or world travelers. They include naturalists, sailors, mountain climbers, dog sledders, swimmers, pilots, and underwater explorers. Astronauts are not included here but in the list of women astronauts.
Name | Nationality | Born | Died | Achievement/s |
---|---|---|---|---|
Harriet Chalmers Adams | American | 1875 | 1937 | Explored and photographed South America, Asia, South Pacific |
Tania Aebi | American | 1966 | Held the record as the youngest person and first American woman to sail solo around the world (with stops and assistance). | |
Alexis Alford | American | 1998 | Youngest person to travel to every country in the world. | |
Felicity Aston | British | 1977 | First person to ski alone across the Antarctic land-mass using only personal muscle power, as well as the first woman to cross the Antarctic land-mass alone | |
Florence Augusta Merriam Bailey | American | 1863 | 1948 | American ornithologist and nature writer, who conducted extensive field work in the American West |
Dominick Arduin | French | 1960 | 2004 | Disappeared on her attempt to become the first woman to ski alone to the North Pole |
Ann Bancroft | American | 1955 | First woman to travel over the ice cap to the North and South Poles | |
Jeanne Baré | French | 1740 | 1807 | First woman (disguised as a man) to circumnavigate the world |
Jean Batten | New Zealander | 1909 | 1982 | First person to fly between England and New Zealand solo - broke other records |
Carol Beckwith | American | 1945 | Photographer, author, and filmmaker known for documenting the tribal cultures of Africa, most notably in partnership with Australian photographer Angela Fisher. | |
Gertrude Bell | British | 1868 | 1926 | Explored and mapped Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Arabia |
Gertrude Benham | British | 1867 | 1938 | Explorer, hiker and mountaineer. Truda Peaks of Mount Rogers is named after her. |
Mabel Bent | Anglo-Irish | 1847 | 1929 | Explored and excavated with her husband James Theodore Bent in the Eastern Mediterranean, South Africa and Southern Arabia |
Laura Bingham | British | 1992 | Executed expedition to cross continent of South America with no money. | |
Isabella Bird | British | 1831 | 1904 | Explorer, writer and naturalist who travelled by herself through North America, Hawaii, Japan, Korea, China, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Persia, Kurdistan, Turkey, and Morocco. |
Nancy Bird-Walton | Australian | 1915 | 2009 | Australian aviation pioneer |
Nellie Bly | American | 1864 | 1922 | Pioneering journalist who travelled around the world in 72 days, the first person to do so. |
Alessandra Boarelli | Italian | 1838 | 1908 | Italian mountaineer and the first woman to summit Monviso in the Alps in 1864. |
Laurence Bougault | French | 1970 | 2018 | French poet and long-distance horseback adventurer in Africa, Middle East and Europe. |
Louise Bourbonnaud | French | 1847 | 1915 | French philanthropist, explorer and writer who traveled alone through North and South America and the Far East. |
Louise Arner Boyd | American | 1887 | 1972 | Explored Greenland and the Arctic |
Beatrix Bulstrode | British | 1869 | 1951 | Journalist and writer who traveled through China and Mongolia in 1911–1913. |
Susan Butcher | American | 1954 | 2006 | Dog musher in Alaska |
Berthe Cabra | Belgian | 1864 | 1947 | Belgian traveller, first European woman to travel across central Africa from East to West. |
Charlotte Cameron | American | 1872 or 1873 | 1946 | American traveller and author. |
Calamity Jane | American | 1852 | 1903 | American frontierswoman and professional scout, known for her claim of being an acquaintance of Wild Bill Hickok and for fighting Indigenous peoples of the Americas. |
Renata Chlumska | Czech and Swedish | 1973 | Climbed Mount Everest, kayaked and bicycled around lower 48 states of USA | |
Krystyna Chojnowska-Liskiewicz | Polish | 1936 | 2021 | First woman to sail solo around the world |
Kay Cottee | Australian | 1954 | First woman to sail solo, non-stop around the world | |
Octavie Coudreau | French | 1870 | c.1910 | c.Early explorer and geographer of the Amazon region in Brazil and French Guiana |
Aimée Crocker | American | 1864 | 1941 | Heiress, writer spent a decade exploring the Far East in the 1890s. Toured the interior of Java and Borneo. |
Sophia Danenberg | American | 1972 | First black woman to reach summit of Mount Everest | |
Anne-France Dautheville | French | c.1943 | First woman to motorcycle solo around the world | |
Alexandra David-Néel | French | 1868 | 1969 | Travelled to Tibet while closed to foreigners |
Robyn Davidson | Australian | 1950 | 2,700 km (1,700 mi) camel trek from Alice Springs to the west coast of Australia | |
Cassandra De Pecol | American | 1989 | Traveled to all sovereign nations on a trip from July 24, 2015, to February 2, 2017; she thus obtained the Guinness World Record for "Fastest Person (Female) to Travel to All Sovereign Nations" and is the first documented woman, fastest American, and youngest American to do such a trip. [1] | |
Laura Dekker | Dutch, German, and New Zealander | 1995 | Youngest person to sail around world solo | |
Eva Dickson | Swedish | 1905 | 1938 | Swedish explorer, aviator, travel writer and rally driver. The first woman to have crossed the Sahara by car. |
Lady Hay Drummond-Hay | British | 1895 | 1946 | First woman to circumnavigate the world by air (by Zeppelin) |
Edith Durham | British | 1863 | 1944 | Explored Albania and the Balkans |
Amelia Earhart | American | 1897 | 1937 | First woman to fly solo across Atlantic |
Isabelle Eberhardt | Swiss | 1877 | 1904 | Swiss explorer and writer in Algeria, who converted to Islam and traveled freely dressed as a man. |
Gertrude Ederle | American | 1905 | 2003 | First woman to swim English Channel |
Enid Gordon-Gallien | British | 1887 | c.1931 | Explored and mapped Kalambo Falls |
Barbara Hillary | American | 1931 | 2019 | First African American woman to reach North Pole |
Amy Johnson | British | 1903 | 1941 | Pioneering aviator who set long-distance flying records |
Osa Johnson | American | 1894 | 1953 | Made films of and wrote books about travels in Africa, South Pacific, Borneo |
Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner | Austrian | 1970 | First woman to climb all fourteen eight-thousander mountains without supplementary oxygen | |
Alma Maximiliana Karlin | Slovene | 1889 | 1950 | World traveler, writer, poet, polyglot and theosophist, who was the second European woman to circle the world solo. In an eight-year travel, she explored North and South America, Oceania, Australia, East Asia, and India. |
Mary Kingsley | British | 1862 | 1900 | Ethnographer and explorer of West Africa |
Belinda Kirk | British | 1974 | c.Founder of Explorers Connect. Kirk has travelled across Africa, Nicaragua, and the Chinese Taklamakan Desert. She captained the first all-female rowing team to circumnavigate Britain non-stop. | |
Lyuba Kutincheva | Bulgarian | 1910 | 1998 | Bulgarian traveler and polyglot who traveled for almost a decade (1929–1938) through the Middle East, Far East, northern Africa and Europe. |
Gertrude Sanford Legendre | American | 1902 | 2000 | American socialite who was a noted explorer and big-game hunter. She contributed rare specimens from Africa, Iran, Southeast Asia, Canada, and Alaska to natural history museums. |
Annie Londonderry | Latvian American | 1870 | 1947 | First woman to bicycle around the world |
Charlotte Mansfield | British | 1881 | 1936 | Wrote Via Rhodesia (1911) about her travels in Southern Africa |
Beryl Markham | British | 1902 | 1986 | British-born Kenyan aviator (one of the first bush pilots), adventurer, racehorse trainer and author. She was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west. |
Sarah Marquis | Swiss | 1972 | Swiss adventurer and explorer who walked 16,000 km (10,000 mi) across Asia, Siberia and Australia | |
Nicole Maxwell | American | 1906 | 1998 | Traveled the Amazon jungle gathering plants for natural remedies and medical use, reportedly amassing over 600 plants; wrote Witch Doctor's Apprentice: Hunting for Medicinal Plants in the Amazon |
Elizabeth Sarah Mazuchelli | British | 1832 | 1914 | Reportedly first western woman to see Mount Everest; wrote The Indian Alps and How We Crossed Them |
Ella Maillart | Swiss | 1903 | 1997 | Explorer and travel writer in Asia from the late 1920s through to World War II; wrote Forbidden Journey – From Peking to Kashmir |
Annette Meakin | British | 1867 | 1959 | First Englishwoman[ citation needed ] to cross the Trans-Siberian Railway. Wrote about this in "The Ribbon of Iron". Travelled in Russian Turkestan and other parts of Russia. |
Ynes Mexia | Mexican-American | 1870 | 1938 | Mexican botanist and explorer who started her career at age 55. Discovered one new genus (Mexianthus) and many new species of plants. |
Béláné Mocsáry | Hungarian | 1845 | 1917 | Hungarian geographer and travel writer who journeyed solo to four continents in the early 1900s. |
Dervla Murphy | Irish | 1931 | 2022 | Irish travel writer known for cycling alone through Europe, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan to India |
Marianne North | British | 1830 | 1890 | Prolific English Victorian biologist and botanical artist |
Vanessa O'Brien | American and British | 1964 | First Woman to reach Earth's Highest (Mt. Everest 8,848m) and Lowest points (Challenger Deep 10,925m) | |
Ida Pfeiffer | Austrian | 1797 | 1858 | Travelled alone around the world in 1847, published books of her numerous travels |
Dorothy Pine | American | 1920 | 2011 | Possibly first woman to visit all 193 UN-recognised countries |
Anésia Pinheiro Machado | Brazilian | 1904 | 1999 | Second Brazilian licensed female pilot in Brazil |
Odette du Puigaudeau | French | 1894 | 1991 | made three trips to northern Africa to conduct field research among the nomads of the western Sahara region and eventually moved to Morocco. |
Teresa Remiszewska | Polish | 1928 | 2002 | first Polish woman to make a solo sailing voyage around the Baltic Sea, using the yacht Zenit, taking a 690-mile route. |
Kate Rice | Canadian | 1882 | 1963 | First woman prospector in Northern Canada, writer, and trapper well known for her dog sled abilities |
Wanda Rutkiewicz | Polish | 1943 | 1992 | Polish mountain climber, the first woman to successfully summit K2 |
Vefa de Saint-Pierre | French | 1872 | 1967 | Global voyager and hunter traveling across North and South America and Australia, writing about her adventures |
Kira Salak | American | 1971 | Travelled in Mali and Papua New Guinea | |
Eliza Scidmore | American | 1856 | 1928 | Journalist and travel writer on Alaska and Far East; introduced idea of Japanese cherry trees to Washington, D.C. |
Beryl Smeeton | British | 1905 | 1979 | Mountaineer, cruising sailor, overland traveller |
Annemarie Schwarzenbach | Swiss | 1908 | 1942 | Journalist and photographer, travelled to Iran, Afghanistan, Africa |
Annie Smith Peck | American | 1850 | 1935 | First person to climb Mount Nevado Huascarán in the Andes |
Hester Stanhope | British | 1776 | 1839 | Conducted first modern archaeology in Holy Land; travelled dressed as a man (unveiled) |
Stephanie Solomonides | Cypriot | 1982 | First Cypriot person to reach North and South Poles | |
Freya Stark | British and Italian (French born) | 1893 | 1993 | Travelled within and wrote about the Middle East, including the Arabian deserts, Afghanistan |
Matilda Coxe Stevenson | American | 1849 | 1915 | Ethnologist and geologist who explored the Rocky Mountain region and the Southwest U.S. |
Clärenore Stinnes | German | 1901 | 1990 | First woman to circumnavigate the world by automobile. |
Rosie Swale-Pope | Swiss, Irish, and British | 1946 | Has run, walked and sailed around the world | |
Junko Tabei | Japanese | 1939 | 2016 | First woman to reach summit of Mount Everest |
Annie Edson Taylor | American | 1838 | 1921 | First person to survive a trip over the Niagara Falls in a barrel |
Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir | Icelandic | 980 | 1019 | With her husband, led an expedition to North America |
Alexine Tinne | Dutch | 1835 | 1869 | Dutch explorer in Africa and the first European woman to attempt to cross the Sahara |
Adeline Van Buren | American | 1889 | 1949 | Along with her sister Augusta Van Buren, they were the first women to ride solo motorcycles across the continental US. |
Augusta Van Buren | American | 1884 | 1959 | Along with her sister Adeline Van Buren, they were the first women to ride solo motorcycles across the continental US. |
Gabrielle Maud Vassal | British | 1880 | 1959 | Naturalist in Vietnam, Congo, Gabon |
Jessica Watson | Australian and New Zealander | 1993 | Youngest person to sail non-stop and unassisted around the world (but did not fulfil WSSRC criteria) | |
Aloha Wanderwell | American | 1906 | 1996 | First woman to drive around the world |
Fanny Bullock Workman | American | 1859 | 1925 | American cartographer, explored glaciers in Himalayas |
An astronaut is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally reserved for professional space travelers, the term is sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists, and tourists.
Space exploration is the use of astronomy and space technology to explore outer space. While the exploration of space is currently carried out mainly by astronomers with telescopes, its physical exploration is conducted both by uncrewed robotic space probes and human spaceflight. Space exploration, like its classical form astronomy, is one of the main sources for space science.
Sally Kristen Ride was an American astronaut and physicist. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA in 1978, and in 1983 became the first American woman and the third woman to fly in space, after cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova in 1963 and Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982. She was the youngest American astronaut to have flown in space, having done so at the age of 32.
List of astronauts or space travellers, may refer to:
The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is the visitor center at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida. It features exhibits and displays, historic spacecraft and memorabilia, shows, two IMAX theaters, and a range of bus tours of the spaceport. The "Space Shuttle Atlantis" exhibit contains the Atlantis orbiter and the Shuttle Launch Experience, a simulated ride into space. The center also provides astronaut training experiences, including a multi-axial chair and Mars Base simulator. The visitor complex also has daily presentations from a veteran NASA astronaut. A bus tour, included with admission, encompasses the separate Apollo/Saturn V Center. There were 1.7 million visitors to the visitor complex in 2016.
The Coalition for Deep Space Exploration is a United States space advocacy organization for space industry businesses and non-profit groups supporting continued government investment in space exploration.
On June 3, 2004, thirteen United States space advocacy groups, industry associations and space policy organizations formed an umbrella organization known as the Space Exploration Alliance (SEA). Its primary purpose is to support the White House's plan to refocus NASA's human space activities toward exploration beyond low Earth orbit.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to space exploration.
The idea of sending humans to Mars has been the subject of aerospace engineering and scientific studies since the late 1940s as part of the broader exploration of Mars. Long-term proposals have included sending settlers and terraforming the planet. Proposals for human missions to Mars have come from agencies such as NASA, CNSA, the European Space Agency, Boeing, and SpaceX. Currently, only robotic landers and rovers have been on Mars. The farthest humans have been beyond Earth is the Moon, under the Apollo program.
The Eugene M. Emme Award is an award given annually to a person or persons selected by a panel of reviewers from the American Astronautical Society History Committee to recognize "the truly outstanding book published each year serving public understanding about the positive impact of astronautics upon society." The award is in honor of Eugene M. Emme, NASA's first historian.
Deep space exploration is the branch of astronomy, astronautics and space technology that is involved with exploring the distant regions of outer space. However, there is little consensus on the meaning of "distant" regions. In some contexts, it is used to refer to interstellar space. The International Telecommunication Union defines "deep space" to start at a distance of 2 million km from the Earth's surface. NASA's Deep Space Network has variously used criteria of 16,000 to 32,000 km from Earth. Physical exploration of space is conducted both by human spaceflights and by robotic spacecraft.
Serena Maria Auñón-Chancellor is an American physician, engineer, and NASA astronaut. She visited the ISS as a flight engineer for Expedition 56/57 on the International Space Station.
Mars to Stay missions propose astronauts sent to Mars for the first time should intend to stay. Unused emergency return vehicles would be recycled into settlement construction as soon as the habitability of Mars becomes evident to the initial pioneers. Mars to Stay missions are advocated both to reduce cost and to ensure permanent settlement of Mars. Among many notable Mars to Stay advocates, former Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin has been particularly outspoken, suggesting in numerous forums "Forget the Moon, Let’s Head to Mars!" and, in June 2013, Aldrin promoted a crewed mission "to homestead Mars and become a two-planet species". In August 2015, Aldrin, in association with the Florida Institute of Technology, presented a "master plan", for NASA consideration, for astronauts, with a "tour of duty of ten years", to colonize Mars before the year 2040. The Mars Underground, Mars Homestead Project / Mars Foundation, Mars One, and Mars Artists Community advocacy groups and business organizations have also adopted Mars to Stay policy initiatives.
In 2011 NASA opened applications for Astronaut Group 21. The team was announced in June 2013 after a year and a half long search. With four men and four women, the class of 2013 had the highest percentage of female finalists. According to NASA astronaut Kathleen Rubins, "it's… a reflection of how many really talented women are in science and engineering these days." NASA received a total of over 6,300 applications, which made it the second highest number received at the time.
Women have flown and worked in outer space since almost the beginning of human spaceflight. A considerable number of women from a range of countries have worked in space, though overall women are still significantly less often chosen to go to space than men, and by June, 2020 constitute only 12% of all astronauts who have been to space. Yet, the proportion of women among space travelers is increasing substantially over time.
The Exploration Museum is dedicated to the history of human exploration, from the early explorers to the exploration of space. The museum is located in the center of Húsavík in North Iceland, 50 kilometres (30 mi) from the Arctic Circle. The museum was founded in 2011 and formally opened in 2014 by the President of Iceland.
The Astronaut Monument is a monument commemorating the training of Apollo astronauts in northern Iceland in 1965 and 1967. It is located outside the Exploration Museum in Húsavík, and contains the names of 32 Apollo astronauts who were sent to Iceland for training in geology for crewed lunar missions. Fourteen of the trainee astronauts later flew to the Moon, and seven of those conducted geology work on the lunar surface.