OTD…Sept. 21 and Endeavour retirement

#OTD in 2002…Atlantis launched the outward expansion of the space station’s truss backbone

Navigating the 48-mile Panama Canal that slices through the isthmus, the final shipment of a space shuttle external fuel tank emerged into the Pacific for a three-week trek to California.

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.