Explorer Heroes

Orville and Wilbur Wright were brothers determined to build a better flying machine.

Amelia Earhart was the first woman pilot to cross the Atlantic.

Jean Batten made the first-ever solo flight from England to New Zealand.

James Herman Banning was an early African American aviator.

Elena Caragiani-Stoenescu was the first woman pilot from Romania.

Chuck Yeager was the first man to break the sound barrier.

"Orbiting Earth in the spaceship, I saw how beautiful our planet is. People, let us preserve and increase this beauty, not destroy it!"

John Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth.

Neil A. Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon.

Valentina Tereshkova is the first woman and first civilian to fly in space.

Sally Ride, first US woman in space.

Mae Jemison dreamed of going to space since childhood.

Ellen Ochoa was the first Hispanic woman astronaut.

Ibn Battutah was a Moroccan Muslim scholar who became one of the greatest world travellers and journalists of all time.

Marco Polo was a famous explorer to the Far East.

Mauricio de Nassau was a famous Dutch explorer.

Alexandrine Tinne was a young Dutch explorer and the first female to attempt to cross the Sahara.

Sacajawea guided Lewis and Clark across the northwestern territories.

Ernest Shackleton in 1901 sailed out in the Discovery to explore the Antarctic.

Fridtjof Nansen was a daring explorer, a freedom fighter, and a selfless humanitarian.

John Muir advocated preservation, feeling that natural areas promote mental health.

Ranald MacDonald was a Native American/Scot wayfarer who helped open up Japan to the West.

John Wesley Powell is an internationally venerated advocate for preserving biodiversity.

Matthew Henson was a brave African-American Arctic explorer, and the co-discoverer of the North Pole.

Charles Darwin famous for his theories of evolution and natural selection.

Jim Bridger was an explorer and mountain man of the Western U.S.

Paul Sipiera led an expedition into Antarctica to find meteorites for NASA.

Roy Chapman Andrews was an explorer and the director of the American Museum of Natural History.

Bertrand Piccard has circum-navigated the earth in a balloon.

Sir Douglas Mawson led the first research expedition into Antarctica.

Dr. Kristi Curry-Rogers is an accomplished paleontologist who travels the globe in search of dinosaur digs.

Merieme Chadid is an astronomer from Morocco who did research at the South Pole.

Jacques Cousteau invented the Aqua-Lung, a predecessor to the SCUBA systems used by divers worldwide today.

"The key is to see ourselves as a part of the natural systems that support us."

William Beebe Sylvia Earle's hero, was a deep-sea diver and naturalist.

Cristina Diaz: Biologist studies intertidal and tropical sponges.

Robert Ballard conducts scientific expeditions around the world with students.

Alexandra Cousteau was honored as an Earth Trustee by the UN in 2007 for her work to protect the oceans.

Please enjoy this reading of our MY HERO story John Muir by Harold W. Wood, Jr., read by Susan Gabriel Bunn.

Sally Ride was the first American woman to go up in space. She is my hero because she showed that women have the same rights as men.

(A) hero...is somebody who is so preeminent in his or her field that it benefits other people and our country. These heroes have dedicated themselves to something that is very important to everybody and their own affairs have become secondary. -John Glenn

Life does not give us all the same opportunities, so when underdogs find a way to succeed anyway they create hope for others.