SANDY KOZEL

(AP)

At 11:38 a.m. EST, on January 28, 1986, the space shuttle
Challenger lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and
Christa McAuliffe is on her way to becoming the first
ordinary U.S. civilian to travel into space. McAuliffe, a
37-year-old high school social studies teacher from New
Hampshire, won a competition that earned her a place
among the seven-member crew of the Challenger.

Seventy-three seconds later, hundreds on the ground,
including Christa’s family, stared in disbelief as the
shuttle broke up in a forking plume of smoke and fire.

The crew of the Challenger space shuttle. Front row,
from left to right, shows astronauts Mike Smith, Dick
Scobee, Ron McNair and in the rear row, from left to
right, are Ellison Onizuka, school teacher Christa
McAuliffe, Greg Jarvis, and Judith Resnik. (NASA) 

   
Amelia Earhart is shown on Jan. 12, 1935, after the first
Hawaii-to-California flight. She was the first pilot to
succeed at flying the route.

(FOX NEWS) – Aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart departed on a
journey to become the first pilot to successfully fly solo from
Hawaii to mainland United States on this day in history, Jan.
11, 1935. 

The daring flight across a vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean
had claimed the lives of 10 previous aviators. She earned
$10,000 from promoters in Hawaii for her death-defying
achievement.

Earhart also hoped to promote a future in which commercial
air travel closed the distances around the world. 

Hawaii celebrates the great aviator.

Newest Air Force stealth bomber, the $750M B-21 Raider,
takes to the air for the time. 

The Hughes Flying Boat—at one time the largest aircraft ever built—
is piloted by designer Howard Hughes on its first and only flight.

The  aircraft is on display at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum located in McMinnville, Oregon.

Nearly four decades after he became the first American to orbit
the Earth, Senator John Herschel Glenn Jr.was launched into
space again as a payload specialist aboard the space shuttle
Discovery on October 29, 1998.

At 77 years of age, Glenn was the oldest human ever to travel
in space. During the nine-day mission, he served as part of a
NASA study on health problems associated with aging.

The crew of space shuttle Discovery mission STS-95,
including John Glenn. On this flight, Glenn became
the oldest person to fly in space. NASA