U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Guion S. Bluford became
the first African American to travel into space when the space
shuttle Challenger lifted off on its third mission.

It was the first night launch of a space shuttle, and many people
stayed up late to watch the spacecraft roar up from Cape
Canaveral, Florida, at 2:32 a.m.

The Challenger spent six days in space, during which time
Bluford and his crew members launched a communications
satellite for the government of India, made contact with an
errant communications satellite, conducted various scientific experiments, and tested the shuttle’s robotic arm.

Guion Stewart Bluford Jr. (82)

Ellen Ochoa is an American engineer, former astronaut and
former director of the Johnson Space Center. In 1993, Ochoa
became the first Latina woman to go to space when she served
on a nine-day mission aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery.

Ochoa became director of the center upon the retirement of
the previous director, Michael Coats, on December 31, 2012.

On September 17, 1976, NASA publicly unveiled its first space
shuttle, the Enterprise, during a ceremony in Palmdale, California.

Development of the aircraft-like spacecraft cost almost $10 billion
and took nearly a decade. In 1977, the Enterprise became the first
space shuttle to fly freely when it was lifted to a height of 25,000
feet by a Boeing 747 airplane and then released, gliding back to
Edwards Air Force Base on its own accord.

From left to right they are: NASA Administrator Dr.
James D. Fletcher; DeForest Kelley, who portrayed
Dr. "Bones" McCoy on the series; George Takei
(Mr. Sulu); James Doohan (Chief Engineer
Montgomery "Scotty" Scott); Nichelle Nichols
(Lt. Uhura); Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock); series
creator Gene Roddenberry; an unnamed NASA
official; and, Walter Koenig (Ensign Pavel Chekov).

On June 29, 1995, the American space shuttle Atlantis docked
with the Russian space station Mir to form the largest man-
made satellite ever to orbit the Earth.

This historic moment of cooperation between former rival space programs was also the 100th human space mission in American
history.

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)