Humans Went The Fastest Of All Time In The Apollo 10 Mission

Apollo 10 achieved the fastest speed humans have ever traveled. Home Science & Industry Facts Copy Twitter Share to Facebook Apollo 10 mission crew Despite being described as a “dress rehearsal” for the first moon landing, which took place just two months later, Apollo 10 achieved something incredible in its own right: the fastest speed that humans have ever traveled. Astronauts Thomas Stafford, John Young, and Eugene Cernan reached a speed of 24,816 mph while returning from their eight-day voyage on May 26, 1969, a record that not even subsequent Apollo missions managed to top. Before doing so, Stafford and Cernan boarded the Apollo lunar module and orbited our only natural satellite at a distance of about 9 miles from its surface. Young later walked on the moon as part of the Apollo 16 mission, and Cernan did so with Apollo 17. Advertisement Other speed records, while impressive, don’t even come close to Apollo 10. The land speed record, set in 1997 by a 54-foot Thrust SuperSonic Car, is 763 mph, while a diving peregrine falcon can reach speeds of 200 mph — making it the world’s fastest animal. The average commercial airliner travels at a speed of 550-600 mph, which is the fastest most of us will ever go. Unless you have an intense need for speed, that’s probably a good thing.