OTD…July 12 and STS-104

#OTD in 1989…Atlantis launched the Galileo spacecraft to Jupiter and in 1993…Columbia launched on a life sciences Spacelab flight

Scott Carpenter launched atop an Atlas rocket to become the second American to orbit the Earth today in 1962, flying for 4 hours and 39 minutes aboard Aurora 7 while making three revolutions of the globe.

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.