OTD…Jan. 27 and Apollo 1

Apollo 16 launched to the Descartes Highlands of the moon on this day in 1972 with John Young, Charlie Duke and Ken Mattingly.

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.

#OTD…Launch of Challenger in 1985 on a Spacelab research flight