On This Date…March 1

The U.S. launched its first man into space on this date, May 5, 1961, as Alan Shepard rode the Freedom 7 capsule on a 15-minute suborbital flight to 116.5 miles in altitude and 303 miles downrange to splashdown.

#OTD…Launch of Columbia in 1998 on the Neurolab Spacelab mission

#OTD in 2001, Discovery launched on STS-102 to exchange crews aboard the International Space Station