OTD…July 13 and STS-70

Today in 1971…The launch of Apollo 14 to Fra Mauro with Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa and Edgar Mitchell.

Today marks the 40th anniversary — July 20, 1976 — of the first U.S. robotic landing on another planet by the Viking 1 spacecraft on Mars.

American and Soviet crews were launched today in 1975 for the first handshakes in space between the two superpowers as part of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.