| First animal in space | Laika, the dog | Sputnik-2 | 03 Nov 1957 |
| First primate in space | Albert II, a rhesus monkey | V-2 | 14 Jun 1949 |
| First man in space | Maj Yuri Gagarin | Vostok 1 | 12 Apr 1961 |
| First woman in space | Valentina Tereshkova | Vostok 6 | 16 Jun 1963 |
| First person to walk in space | Alexei Leonov | Voskhod 2 | 18 Mar 1965 |
| First woman to walk in space | Svetlana Savitskaya | Salyut 7 | 25 Jul 1984 |
| First American in space | Allan Shepard | MR-3 (Freedom 7) | 05 May 1961 |
| First American to orbit the earth | John Glenn | Friendship 7 | 20 Feb 1962 |
| First man on moon | Neil Armstrong | Apollo 11 | 20 Jul 1969 |
| First Indian in space | Sqn Ldr Rakesh Sharma | Soyuz T-11 | 02 Apr 1984 |
| First US woman in space | Sally Ride | STS-7 (Challenger) | 18 Jun 1983 |
| First space tourist | Dennis Tito | Soyuz TM32/31 | 28 Apr 2001 |
| First woman space tourist | Anousheh Ansari | Soyuz TMA9 | 18 Sep 2006 |
| First Indian (American) Woman in space | Kalpana Chawla | Spaceship Columbia | 19 Nov 1997 |
| First Chinese in space | Lt Col Yang Liwei | Shenzou V | 15 Oct 2003 |
| First Chinese woman in space | Liu Yang | Shenzou 9 | 16 Jun 2012 |
| First female commander of a space shuttle | Eileen Collins | Discovery | 03 Feb 1995 |
| First female commander of International Space Station | Peggy Whitson | - | October 2007 |
