# What is the greatest crewed space mission of all time?

> Moon landings, first orbits, and dramatic rescues — these missions pushed humanity's boundaries in vastly different ways. Which one matters most?

*By YPB Team · Published April 7, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-greatest-crewed-space-mission-of-all-time*

---

## Current results (1 vote)

1. **Voskhod 2** — score 1000/1000
   Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov performed the world's first spacewalk on March 18, 1965, spending 12 minutes outside the capsule in a near-fatal EVA.
2. **Vostok 1** — score 839/1000
   Yuri Gagarin's 108-minute orbit of Earth on April 12, 1961 — the first time a human being traveled to space.
3. **Apollo 11** — score 732/1000
   The first mission to land humans on the Moon, fulfilling President Kennedy's challenge and marking humanity's greatest exploratory achievement.
4. **Apollo 17** — score 599/1000
   The final Moon landing mission carried the last humans to walk on the lunar surface and returned the most lunar samples of any Apollo mission.
5. **ISS Expedition 1** — score 599/1000
   The first long-duration crew to live aboard the International Space Station, beginning a continuous human presence in space that has lasted over two decades.
6. **Mercury Freedom 7** — score 599/1000
   Alan Shepard's 15-minute suborbital flight on May 5, 1961 made him the first American in space, just three weeks after Yuri Gagarin's orbit.
7. **STS-1 Columbia** — score 428/1000
   The inaugural Space Shuttle mission in April 1981 proved that a winged, reusable spacecraft could reach orbit and land like an airplane.
8. **Skylab 2** — score 428/1000
   The first crew to inhabit America's Skylab space station rescued the station itself, repairing damage sustained during launch and paving the way for long-duration spaceflight.
9. **Apollo 13** — score 428/1000
   A crippled Moon mission that became NASA's finest hour as engineers and astronauts improvised a safe return to Earth after an oxygen tank exploded.
10. **Gemini 4** — score 428/1000
   Ed White became the first American to walk in space during this 1965 mission, spending 23 minutes tethered outside the spacecraft.
11. **STS-135 Atlantis** — score 428/1000
   The 135th and final Space Shuttle mission closed out 30 years of the shuttle program when Atlantis landed on July 21, 2011.
12. **SpaceX Crew Dragon Demo-2** — score 428/1000
   The first commercial crewed spaceflight sent NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the ISS aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon in 2020, ending a 9-year gap in US human spaceflight.

Tags: science, space, nasa