OTD…Sept. 29 and STS-26

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

Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins launched today in 1969 aboard Apollo 11 for one of the defining moments of the 20th century — man’s first landing on the moon.

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.