On this date: March 8

Today in 1969, the launch of Apollo 9 and the first manned flight of all lunar hardware in Earth orbit.

NASA’s first space station — the Skylab orbital workshop — was launched atop a Saturn 5 rocket today, May 14, in 1973.

The first crew to inhabit Skylab — Conrad, Weitz and Kerwin — launched today in 1973 for a 28-day mission that successfully made critical repairs, brought the station into operation and conducted solar astronomy, Earth resources and medical experiments.