On June 3, 1965, 120 miles above the Earth, Major Edward H.
White II opened the hatch of the Gemini 4 and steps out of the
capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to walk in
space. Attached to the craft by a 25-foot tether and controlling
his movements with a hand-held oxygen jet-propulsion gun,
White remained outside the capsule for just over 20 minutes. 

White had been preceded by Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei A.
Leonov, who on March 18, 1965, was the first man ever to 
walk in space.

     
     
     
     
   
Edward Higgins White II 
(November 14, 1930 – January 27, 1967            

    

(NASA) – America’s first space station, Skylab, launched into
Earth’s orbit on this day in history, May 14, 1973.

The unmanned space station blasted into space on a modified
Saturn V rocket at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. 

According to Space.com., this marked the last time the Saturn
V rocket was used in spaceflight.

Artist’s concept of Skylab space station cluster in Earth’s
orbit.

On May 5, 1961, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr.
was launched into space aboard the Freedom 7 space
capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to travel
into space. 

The suborbital flight, which lasted 15 minutes and reached
a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere, was a major triumph 
for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

The view from Freedom 7.

With the world anxiously watching, Apollo 13, a U.S. lunar spacecraft
that suffered a severe malfunction on its journey to the moon, safely returned to Earth on April 17, 1970.

From Cape Canaveral, Florida, Apollo 16, the fifth of six U.S.
lunar landing missions,was successfully launched (above)
on its 238,000-mile journey to the moon.

The prime crew of the Apollo 16 lunar landing mission. From
left to right: Thomas K. Mattingly II, Command Module pilot; John W. Young, Commander; and Charles M. Duke Jr., Lunar Module pilot.