Extravehicular activity (EVA) is any activity done by an astronaut in outer space outside a spacecraft. In the absence of a breathable Earthlike atmosphere, the astronaut is completely reliant on a space suit for environmental support. EVA includes spacewalks and lunar or planetary surface exploration. In a stand-up EVA (SEVA), an astronaut stands through an open hatch but does not fully leave the spacecraft. EVAs have been conducted by the Soviet Union/Russia, the United States, Canada, the European Space Agency and China.
Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov was a Soviet and Russian cosmonaut, Air Force major general, writer, and artist. On 18 March 1965, he became the first person to conduct a spacewalk, exiting the capsule during the Voskhod 2 mission for 12 minutes and 9 seconds. He was also selected to be the first Soviet person to land on the Moon although the project was cancelled.
Claude Nicollier is the first astronaut from Switzerland. He has flown on four Space Shuttle missions. His first spaceflight (STS-46) was in 1992, and his final spaceflight (STS-103) was in 1999. He took part in two servicing missions to the Hubble Space Telescope. During his final spaceflight he participated in a spacewalk, becoming the first European Space Agency astronaut to do so during a Space Shuttle mission. In 2000 he was assigned to the Astronaut Office Extravehicular Activity Branch, while maintaining a position as Lead ESA Astronaut in Houston. Nicollier retired from ESA in April 2007.
Jill Cornell Tarter is an American astronomer best known for her work on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Tarter is the former director of the Center for SETI Research, holding the Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI at the SETI Institute. In 2002, Discover magazine recognized her as one of the 50 most important women in science.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astrophysicist, author, and science communicator. Tyson studied at Harvard University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Columbia University. From 1991 to 1994, he was a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University. In 1994, he joined the Hayden Planetarium as a staff scientist and the Princeton faculty as a visiting research scientist and lecturer. In 1996, he became director of the planetarium and oversaw its $210 million reconstruction project, which was completed in 2000. Since 1996, he has been the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City. The center is part of the American Museum of Natural History, where Tyson founded the Department of Astrophysics in 1997 and has been a research associate in the department since 2003.
Joseph Ivor Silk FRS is a British-American astrophysicist. He was the Savilian Chair of Astronomy at the University of Oxford from 1999 to September 2011.
Jack William Szostak is a Canadian American biologist of Polish British descent, Nobel Prize laureate, University Professor at the University of Chicago, former Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, and Alexander Rich Distinguished Investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. Szostak has made significant contributions to the field of genetics. His achievement helped scientists to map the location of genes in mammals and to develop techniques for manipulating genes. His research findings in this area are also instrumental to the Human Genome Project. He was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, along with Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol W. Greider, for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres.
Stephen William Hawking was an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. Between 1979 and 2009, he was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, widely viewed as one of the most prestigious academic posts in the world.
Garik Israelian is an Armenian-Spanish astrophysicist and co-founder of the Starmus Festival. In 1999, Israelian and colleagues presented the first observational evidence that supernova explosions were responsible for the formation of stellar-mass black holes.
51 Degrees North is a 2014 science-fiction film written and directed by Grigorij Richters and starring Moritz von Zeddelmann, Steve Nallon, Jamie Doyle, Dolly-Ann Osterloh, and Steven Cree. The film is visually presented as found footage shot from the perspective of various video recording devices, primarily from a handheld camcorder operated by the main characters and from CCTV cameras and social media. The original soundtrack was composed by Queen and Brian May.
The Theory of Everything is a 2014 biographical romantic drama film directed by James Marsh. Set at the University of Cambridge, it details the life of the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. It was adapted by Anthony McCarten from the 2007 memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen by Jane Hawking, which deals with her relationship with her ex-husband Stephen Hawking, his diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and his success in the field of physics. The film stars Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones, with Charlie Cox, Emily Watson, Simon McBurney, Christian McKay, Harry Lloyd, and David Thewlis featured in supporting roles. The film had its world premiere at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival on 7 November 2014. It had its UK premiere on 1 January 2015.
Particle Fever is a 2013 American documentary film tracking the first round of experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland. The film follows the experimental physicists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) who run the experiments, as well as the theoretical physicists who attempt to provide a conceptual framework for the LHC's results. The film begins in 2008 with the first firing of the LHC and concludes in 2012 with the successful identification of the Higgs boson.
The Starmus International Festival is an international gathering focused on celebrating astronomy, space exploration, music, art, and sciences such as biology and chemistry. It was founded by Garik Israelian, an astronomer at the Institute for Astrophysics in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain and Brian May of the rock band Queen.
Grigorij S. Richters is a film director, public relations expert, activist, producer and official Forbes Council member. He directed the feature film 51 Degrees North and co-founded the global awareness movement Asteroid Day with astrophysicist and Queen guitarist Brian May. Richters was Kevin Spacey's filmmaker-in-residence at the Old Vic Theatre and activist Stephen Sutton's documentarian before Sutton's death in 2014. He filmed and produced his first documentary at the age of 11. He also walked from Paris to Berlin to advocate for refugee children who are stuck in Greek refugee camps. In 2022, he founded XWECAN, a PR and Communications agency. He has worked with the likes of King Charles III, Keira Knightley and Whoopi Goldberg.
Jan Świerkowski is a Polish curator, artist, cultural researcher and astronomer. He is also the creative director and the curator of an artistic-scientific ensemble Instytut B61.
Apollo 11 is a 2019 American documentary film edited, produced and directed by Todd Douglas Miller. It focuses on the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, the first spaceflight from which men walked on the Moon. The film consists solely of archival footage, including 70 mm film previously unreleased to the public, and does not feature narration, interviews or modern recreations. The Saturn V rocket, Apollo crew consisting of Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins, and Apollo program Earth-based mission operations engineers are prominently featured in the film.
James Michael Clash is an American participatory adventure journalist and author who has engaged in and written about various challenging exploits. He has written for Forbes, AskMen, Huffington Post, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Automobile. Clash has written three books: Forbes To The Limits, The Right Stuff: Interviews with Icons of the 1960s, and The Right Stuff: Interviews with Icons of the 1970s and 1980s. He is a fellow and former board member of The Explorers Club and is also ticket holder 610 on Virgin Galactic for a flight to space.
Todd Douglas Miller is an American filmmaker known for directing the award-winning films Dinosaur 13 and Apollo 11.
