The unmanned Saturn/Apollo 4 (AS-501) mission was the first unmanned test flight of the three stage Saturn V rocket. It carried a payload of an Apollo Command and Service Module (CSM) into Earth orbit.

Mariner 10 was a robotic space probe launched by NASA on Saturday November 3,
1973, to fly by the planets Mercury and Venus. The objectives were to measure
surface, atmosphere, environment, and atmospheric characteristics of both
planets. It was launched approximately two years after Mariner 9 and was the
last spacecraft in the Mariner program.

The hydrogen bomb “Mike”

On Nov. 1, 1952, U.S. scientists exploded the first hydrogen bomb, in a test
at Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands. With an explosive force of 10 million tons
of TNT, the detonation vaporized the entire island, leaving a crater more than
a mile wide. It was more than 500 times greater than the atomic bomb dropped
on Hiroshima. The test was given the code-name “Mike”.

NASA

October 22, 1968, Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission splashed down during 
a rainstorm in the Atlantic 200 nautical miles SSW of Bermuda, close to the planned  
impact point and 8 miles north of the recovery ship.The tired, but happy crew was 
picked up by helicopter and taken to the U.S.S. Essex. The Apollo 7 Capsule is  
currently on display at the Frontiers of Flight Museum located next to Love
Field in Dallas Texas.  

The Apollo 7 Crew from left: Command Moduel Pilot Donn F. Eisele,
Commander Walter M. Schirra, and Lunar Module Pilot R. Walter
Cunningham.

The Apollo 7 Capsule on display

National Geographic is the official journal of the National Geographic Society,
the largest scientific and educational institution in the world. It published its
first issue, called the National Geographic Magazine, on October 17, 1888,
just nine months after the nonprofit Society was founded.

National Geographic Society’s headquarters in 1899