On April 8, 1993, the space shuttle Discovery lifted off from
the Kennedy Space Center. On board was astronaut Ellen
Ochoa, soon to become the first Hispanic woman in space.

Ochoa started at NASA in 1988 after receiving a doctorate
in electrical engineering from Stanford University. Two
years later, she was selected as an astronaut.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Astronaut Thomas P. Stafford, who
commanded a dress rehearsal flight for the 1969 moon
landing and the first U.S.-Soviet space linkup, died Monday
in a hospital near his Space Coast Florida home.

Stafford, a retired Air Force three-star general, took part in
four space missions. Before Apollo 10, he flew on two Gemini
flights, including the first rendezvous of two U.S. capsules in
orbit.

Stafford was one of 24 NASA astronauts who flew to the moon,
but he did not land on it. Only seven of them are still alive.

ASTRONAUT THOMAS P. STAFFORD DURING GEMINI 9 MISSION.

While in orbit 170 miles above Earth, Navy Captain Bruce
McCandless II became the first human being to perform
an untethered spacewalk, when he exits the U.S. space
shuttle Challenger and maneuvers freely, using a bulky
white jet pack of his own design.

McCandless orbited Earth in tangent with the shuttle at
speeds greater than 17,500 miles per hour—the speed
at which satellites normally orbit Earth—and flew up to
320 feet away from the Challenger. After an hour and a
half of testing and flying the jet-powered backpack and
admiring Earth, McCandless safely reentered the shuttle.

Bruce McCandless II
(June 8, 1937 – December 21, 2017)

Debris from the space shuttle Columbia streaks across the
sky over Tyler, Texas.

On February 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia brook up while
entering the atmosphere over Texas, killing all seven crew
members on board.

The Columbia‘s 28th space mission, designated STS-107, was
originally scheduled to launch on January 11, 2001, but was
delayed numerous times for a variety of reasons over nearly
two years. Columbia finally launched on January 16, 2003, with
a crew of seven. Eighty seconds into the launch, a piece of foam insulation broke off from the shuttle’s propellant tank and hit the
edge of the shuttle’s left wing.

The Space Shuttle Columbia crew, left to right. Front row:
Rick Husband, Kalpana Chawla, William McCool. Back row: David Brown, Laurel Clark, Michael Anderson and Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon. (AP file)

The crew of the space shuttle Columbia on the day of launch.

Accident investigators reconstructed space shuttle Columbia from recovered debris.