As his companions David Scott and James Irwin descended to the moon and walked around there, Alfred Worden continued to wait for them in orbit around the moon. At one point, he was 3,600 kilometers from his colleagues and about 360,000 kilometers from the rest of humanity on Earth.
That earned Worden a place in the Guinness Book of Records, as the most secluded person ever.
The American space agency NASA calls Worden “an American hero whose achievements in space and on Earth will never be forgotten”.
74 laps around the moon
Al Worden was trained as a jet fighter pilot in the United States Air Force. In 1966, he was hired by NASA as an astronaut. During his mission, he spun 74 laps around the moon. “After each round, I went to a window and watched the Earth rise behind the moon. That was quite unique,” he said in an interview a few years ago.
During the return flight to Earth, Worden made the first spacewalk in deep space. That happened 300,000 kilometers away from Earth. Until then, all spacewalks had been orbiting the Earth, several hundred kilometers above.
In total, 24 people went to the moon and back. Twelve of them walked on the surface.
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