In doing so, he secured himself what is hands down the greatest golf story ever told, not to mention the record for longest drive in history — which, if calculations are to be believed, could well have exceeded 2.5 miles, with a hangtime of around 70 seconds. How's that for a long drive?

Forty years ago today, Apollo 14 completed the third successful lunar landing in human history. As the lunar module Antares took off, astronaut Edgar Mitchell snapped a bunch of photographs that have now created this amazing image of their landing site. But this is just a part of the entire mosaic, which reveals their…

Apollo 14 astronaut Alan Shepard famously took a golf ball along with him to the Moon, making him the first person to play golf on another world. But just how far did his shot travel? One physicist has the answer.

Consider the above a tribute to Alan Shepard, who 48 years ago today became the first American in space, piloting Freedom 7 on its 15-minute ascent 116 miles above the Earth. Here he is, post-splashdown.