Who was the first person to travel into space twice?

The answer and circumstances are amazing.

Gus Grissom.
Tragic death :(

Quote: BoulderDamIt

Gus Grissom.
Tragic death :(

That's a good guess, but it's not the answer.

Yuri Gagarin was the first person to fly in space. Not only that, his flight placed him in orbit around the earth. The first two American astronauts in space, Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom, flew on suborbital flights. It wasn't until John Glenn that the Americans put a man in orbit. John Glenn was the oldest of the Mercury Seven astronauts, and he is the last surviving member of that group. He's 93 years old.

But no, Yuri Gagarin wasn't the first person to go into space twice. He only made the first historic flight and never went into space again.

John,

X-15?

Quote: BoulderDamIt

John,

X-15?

You think outside the box, but not the answer.

Quote: Greasyjohn

You think outside the box, but not the answer.

Am I at least on the right track?
This is fun though! It combines a couple of my greatest loves; Aeronautics, Astronomy, Cosmology and History.
Unfortunately I'm not old enough to have experienced the wonder of the space race, lift offs being televised as a national event or the fascination by my peers.
The space program in high school consisted of a couple of pages on Armstrong, Aldrin, Connolly, Ride & the Challenger.

San Diego did have a pretty cool experience for middle schoolers however, I just wish there was more than a few hours devoted to it. It might still be around, they may have just moved the facilities. It was called the Challenger Space Center in La Mesa, CA.
You'd pretend you were in Mission Control or on the Space Station doing Missions, Tasks, Experiments, etc... I loved it when we took a field trip the one time we went.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenger_Center_for_Space_Science_Education

Here's the place I was talking about. Looks like there's several throughout the US.

Quote: BleedingChipsSlowly

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John Walker, X-15 above 100km

So I was close with my second guess. Flight 91 says Google.

I'm glad you enjoy the subject. But I don't want to give away any hints toward the answer.

What I find interesting about space travel is this: If you imagine the earth about the size of a basketball, then about 550 astronauts and cosmonauts have traveled around that basketball never going more than about 1/2 inch from the surface. But 24 astronauts traveled to the moon, about 30 feet from basketball-earth. There have been 9 manned trips to the moon, but only 6 of those had austronauts walk on the moon. Three austronauts made the trip to the moon twice. John Young, Eugene Cernan and Jim Lovell. Jim Lovell went to the moon twice but never landed on the surface because the ill-fated Apollo 13 flight was just lucky to slingshot around the moon and make it safely back to earth. But both John Young and Eugene Cernan both went to the moon twice, and each of them walked on the moon once. These two austronauts have a very special place in history. Jim Lovell, John Young and Eugene Cernan are all in their 80s now.

Next time you look up at the full moon imagine it to be about the size of a tennis ball. Now imagine seeing the earth right next to it but the earth is the size of a soccer ball. The earth would look huge by comparison. You could easily make out Florida. That's what the earth would look like from the surface of the moon.

double post

Quote: BoulderDamIt

Quote: BleedingChipsSlowly

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John Walker, X-15 above 100km

So I was close with my second guess. Flight 91 says Google.

You're so close I'm declaring you correct. But the name is Joseph Walker. He made two flights in the X-15 in 1963, both of which exceeded 62.1 miles in altitude (the internationally accepted minium altitude to be considered a space flight, or 100,000 kilometers). What's interesting is that Walker was not one of the Mercury Seven. And he was also the only X-15 pilot to have taken his craft above the 62.1 mile mark, and he did it twice.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VhHif6Dkpk4

I love videos like this. Although it's a bit dated as there have been a few additions since 2009. This video just had the best production quality out of the few scale videos I have seen. I see the scale and I still can't comprehend.
I once tried to explain to my fiancee the size of Earth in relation to the largest known star at the time. Keep in mind this is a size I cannot even fathom. The best I could explain given the calculations I did was...
"Imagine the Earth is a single grain of sand. And not a big grain either. A small, weathered grain from the beach. Now imagine next to it an orb approximately a mile in diameter. That's still not enough to show the size of the largest known star".
It boggles the mind.

Imagine that the sun is the size of a ping pong ball, and place it at home plate in a baseball stadium. The earth would be the size of a grain of sand about 10 feet away. And Pluto would be at the outfield fence. The nearest star, the size of a ping pong ball would be 600 miles away.

Quote: Greasyjohn

The answer and circumstances are amazing.

other circumstances besides what you've mentioned?

My apologies for splitting this in two but I cannot paste something twice in the same post, or else the second paste deletes everything else.

John,
I thought you'd get a kick out of this given the subject at hand. It gave me quite a chuckle.
Brian Williams was doing a report on a report that NPR did on a study how men are idiots. I'll post the video, but the effect isn't the same as the quote. It was quite poignant without the added music by the uploader.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/12/12/370414365/are-men-idiots-who-do-stupid-things-study-says-yes


Anyways, Williams goes on to list the points in the study about all the different ways men are idiots. The risks we take, the foolish things we do, the actions we sometimes take without forethought.
"To which all of the men of the world replied with two words..."
"Chuck Yeager".

Well put Mr. Williams.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8_vM5E75DC0&feature=youtu.be

Here's the video.

Quote: odiousgambit

other circumstances besides what you've mentioned?

No, but it's pretty amazing to think that the X-15 was making space flights. I don't think the general public thinks beyond the Mercury Seven when they think of the first American astronauts in space.

Griffith Observatory did a great job explaining this for me when I took her up there last September. She could see I was having a great time geeking out. I got some great shots of LA at night.
Even better I took some amazing shots during the Blood Moon Eclipse. I put my camera up to my neighbor's telescope. The pictures look professional, I was quite amazed. Everyone that saw them couldn't believe I took them and that it was done on a camera phone. I have them on my Facebook page if you're interested. The FB quality isn't as sharp, but they still look amazing. I need to find a free picture site that won't degrade the pictures at all.

http://www.griffithobs.org/exhibits/solar_system_lawn_model.html

Quote: Greasyjohn

Imagine that the sun is the size of a ping pong ball, and place it at home plate in a baseball stadium. The earth would be the size of a grain of sand about 10 feet away. And Pluto would be at the outfield fence. The nearest star, the size of a ping pong ball would be 600 miles away.