Thomas Alva Edison was a scientist, inventor, and businessman who developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, electric light bulb. He was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production and  is often credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory.

Apollo 14 was the eighth manned mission in the Apollo program , the third to land on
the Moon. It was the last of the "H missions", targeted landings with two-day stays on
the Moon with two lunar EVA’s, or moonwalks. The crew for the nine-day mission included , from left to right, Lunar Module Pilot Edgar Mitchell, Commander Alan
Shepard, and Command Module Pilot Stuart Roosa. Shepard and Mitchell made their lunar landing on February  5 in an area originally targeted for the aborted Apollo 13 mission. During the two lunar EVS’s, 93 pounds of Moon rocks were collected and several surface  experiments were conducted. Commander Shepard hit two golf
balls while on the lunar surface with a make-shift club he brought from Earth.

       Commander Alan Shepard hitting a golf ball on the lunar surface

        
                          Autographed golf ball used by Shepard

Pictured above is an animation of the Explorer orbiting Earth and a scale model of the
satellite being held up by (left to right) William Pickering, James Von Allen, and Wernher 
Von Braun. 

Explorer 1  was the first Earth satellite of the United States, launched as part of its participation in an international scientific project. The mission followed the first two
Earth satellites the previous year, the Soviet Union’s Sputnic l and 2, beginning the
Cold War Space Race between the two nations.

Explorer 1 was launched  atop the first Juno booster from at the Cape Canaveral, Florida. It returned data until its batteries were exhausted after nearly four months. It remained in orbit until 1970.

One of the first people to build a telephone exchange was Hungarian Tivadar Puskas (above) in 1877 while he was working for Thomas Edison. George W. Coy designed and built the first commercial telephone exchange which opened in New Haven, Connecticut. He’s been called the first full-time telephone operator. The switchboard was built from "carriage bolts, handles from teapot lids and bustle wire" and could handle two simultaneous conversations .

    
              The first telephone switchboard built by George W. Coy

Space Shuttle Challenger  was NASA’s second Space Shuttle orbiter to be put into service, Columbia being the first. Its maiden flight was on April 4, 1983, and it completed nine missions before breaking apart 73 seconds after the launch of its tenth mission, on January 28, 1986, resulting in the death of all seven crew members. The break up was ultimately due to the failure of an O-ring on its right solid-fuel rocket booster (SRB). The failure was due to a variety of factors, including unusually low temperatures prior to liftoff.

The accident led to a two-and-a-half year grounding of the shuttle fleet. The  missions resumed in 1988 with the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery.

    
                                                 The Challenger crew

   
                                                

             Challenger memorial at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia