James M. Clash

Three years ago I bought a $200,000 ticket to fly into space aboard Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.

There is a popular TV commercial airing where Mario Andretti races down the track in his two-seat Indy car with a guest in the back.

On Feb. 5, 1971, Edgar Mitchell became the sixth of only 12 men to step on the moon. Of that elite dozen, which included Buzz Aldrin and the late Neil Armstrong 44 years ago this week, Mitchell is the only one to go on record about his controversial belief in extraterrestrial UFOs -- and of a possible government cover-up.

Sixty years ago, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

Buzz Aldrin was the second man to step onto the lunar surface, 19 minutes behind the late Neil Armstrong. That was July 20, 1969, nearly 44 years ago.

Owning something flown on the Apollo lunar missions has always been challenging. However since last September, when the U.S. house passed a resolution granting astronauts clear title to the items they carried into space, it has become a lot easier.

A year ago, James Cameron surprised the world by taking a submersible he’d secretly developed to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, nearly seven miles below sea level.

Fifty years ago, in 1963, Jim Whittaker became the first American to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak at 29,035 feet.

After 11 hours nonstop from New York to Honolulu, I had no plans to hit the beach for surfing.

On Jan. 28 1998, when mammoth swells closed Oahu’s North Shore beaches, Ken Bradshaw defiantly took his WaveRunner a few miles offshore to a reef where the biggest waves were breaking. IMAX was filming “Extreme” via helicopter, and he wanted to be in it.

On Dec. 14, 1972, Apollo 17 Commander Eugene Cernan climbed from the moon’s dusty surface up the rungs of the Lunar Module ladder, entered his spacecraft and began the journey back to earth.

Four decades ago, Apollo missions hauled over 840 pounds of moon rocks back to Earth for scientific evaluation. None of the dozen astronauts who collected the samples received a personal specimen -- not even the late Neil Armstrong.