Todays Highlight in History

STS-7 was a NASA Space Shuttle mission, during which Space Shuttle Challenger deployed several satellites into orbit. The shuttle launched from Kennedy Space Center on 18 June 1983, and landed at Edwards Air Force Base on 24 June. STS-7 was the seventh shuttle mission, and was Challenger's second mission. It was also the first American spaceflight involving a female astronaut.
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Iconic TV Shows That Have Ended, Part 2

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century is an American science fiction adventure television series produced by Universal Studios. The series ran for two seasons between 1979–1981, and the feature-length pilot episode for the series was released as a theatrical film several months before the series aired. The film and series were developed by Glen A. Larson, based upon the character Buck Rogers created in 1928 by Philip Francis Nowlan that had previously been featured in comic strips, novellas, a serial film, and on television and radio
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Skylab was launched 14 May 1973 by a Saturn V (the last launch of such a rocket) with the upper stage removed, but with the avionics remaining in the same position (different from the Saturn INT-21 rocket, which could launch payloads not based on the S-IVB) into a 235-nautical-mile (435-km) orbit. The launch is sometimes referred to as Skylab 1, or SL-1. Severe damage was sustained during launch and deployment, including the loss of the station's micrometeoroid shield/sun shade and one of its main solar panels. Debris from the lost micrometeoroid shield further complicated matters by pinning the remaining solar panel to the side of the station, preventing its deployment and thus leaving the station with a huge power deficit.
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Decommissioned Naval Ships

Here's a 2 for 1 special

USS Hornet CV-8, the seventh ship to carry the name Hornet, was a Yorktown-class aircraft carrier of the United States Navy. During World War II in the Pacific Theater, she launched the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo and participated in the Battle of Midway and the Buin-Faisi-Tonolai Raid. In the Solomon Islands campaign she was involved in the Capture and Defense of Guadalcanal and the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands where she was irreparably damaged and sunk. Hornet was in service for a year and six days and was the last US fleet carrier ever sunk by enemy fire. For these actions, she was awarded four service stars, a citation for the Doolittle Raid in 1995, and her Torpedo Squadron 8 received a Presidential Unit Citation for extraordinary heroism for the Battle of Midway.
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USS Hornet (CV/CVA/CVS-12) is a United States Navy aircraft carrier of the Essex class. Construction started in August 1942; she was originally named USS Kearsarge, but was renamed in honor of the USS Hornet (CV-8), which was lost in October 1942, becoming the eighth ship to bear the name.

Hornet was commissioned in November 1943, and after three months of training joined the U.S. forces in the Pacific War. She played a major part in the Pacific battles of World War II, and also took part in Operation Magic Carpet, returning troops back to the U.S. Following World War II, she served in the Korean War, Vietnam War, and also played a part in the Apollo program, recovering astronauts as they returned from the Moon.

Hornet was finally decommissioned in 1970. She was eventually designated a National Historic Landmark, and in 1998 she opened to the public as the USS Hornet Museum in Alameda, California.
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Todays Highlight in History

Mercury-Redstone 3 was the first manned space mission of the United States. Astronaut Alan Shepard piloted a 15-minute Project Mercury suborbital flight in the Freedom 7 spacecraft on May 5, 1961 to become the first American in space, three weeks after the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had carried out the first orbital spaceflight.

The capsule, launched on a Redstone rocket from Launch Complex 5 (LC-5) at Cape Canaveral, Florida, reached an altitude of 116.5 miles (187.5 km) before falling back on a ballistic trajectory and splashing down 303 miles (488 km) away from the launch pad, off the Bahamas. During the flight, Shepard observed the Earth and tested the reaction control system of the spacecraft. Earth photos were taken by an automatic camera mounted in the spacecraft's window.

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Iconic TV Shows That Have Ended

The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from September 10, 1993 to May 19, 2002. The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans, such as "The Truth Is Out There," "Trust No One," and "I Want to Believe," became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s. Seen as a defining series of its era, The X-Files tapped into public mistrust of governments and large institutions, and embraced conspiracy theories and spirituality as it centered on efforts to uncover the existence of extraterrestrial life.
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Iconic Stuff

NEW YORK (AP) — Any new arrival to New York City wants to see the sights — and the space shuttle Enterprise is no different.

Enterprise is scheduled to arrive in the city Friday, riding on top of a modified jumbo jet. Its trip was to include low-altitude flyovers over parts of the city and landmarks including the Statue of Liberty and the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum on Manhattan's west side.
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Enterprise test flight

Space

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A researcher has spotted lava flows shaped like coils of rope near the equator of Mars, the first time such geologic features have been discovered outside of Earth.

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Todays Highlight in History

STS-31 was the thirty-fifth mission of the American Space Shuttle program, which launched the Hubble Space Telescope astronomical observatory into Earth orbit. The mission used the Space Shuttle Discovery, which lifted off from Launch Pad 39B on 24 April 1990 from Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

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Iconic TV Shows That Have Ended

Quantum Leap is an American television series that was broadcast on NBC from March 26, 1989 to May 5, 1993, for a total of five seasons. The series was created by Donald Bellisario, and starred Scott Bakula as Dr. Sam Beckett, a physicist from six years in the future (during the series' original run) who becomes lost in time following a time travel experiment, temporarily taking the places of other people to "put right what once went wrong". Dean Stockwell co-starred as Al Calavicci, Sam's womanizing, cigar-smoking sidekick and best friend, who appeared as a hologram that only Sam, animals, young children, and the mentally ill could see and hear. The series featured a mix of comedy, drama and melodrama, social commentary, nostalgia and science fiction, which won it a broad range of fans. One of its trademarks is that at the end of each episode, Sam "leaps" into the setting for the next episode, usually uttering a dismayed "Oh, boy!"

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Space

'Monolith' Object on Mars? You Could Call It That

Amateur stargazers have discovered an intriguing object jutting out from the surface of Mars. The seemingly perfectly rectangular, upright structure, found in NASA images of the Red Planet, bears a striking resemblance to the monoliths planted on Earth and the moon by aliens in the classic sci-fi film "2001: A Space Odyssey."
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Amazon Founder Finds Apollo 11 Moon Rocket Engines On Ocean Floor

When NASA's mighty Saturn V rocket launched the historic Apollo 11 mission to land the first men on the moon in 1969, the five powerful engines that powered the booster's first stage dropped into the Atlantic Ocean and were lost forever.

Lost, that is, until now.

Earth

Mysterious Geologic Structure Seen from Space

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Skydiver aims to jump from 23 miles, go supersonic

This summer, Baumgartner hopes to hurtle toward Earth at supersonic speed from a record 23 miles up, breaking the sound barrier with only his body.

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Space

See How Earth's Moon Evolved in New NASA Videos.

Two new NASA videos use the latest close-up imagery of the moon from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to reveal Earth's natural satellite in a whole new light.

One video zooms over the moon to reveal its most prominent features. Imagery from the spacecraft shows these lunar highlights in high-resolution detail, revealing deep craters, towering mountains, and even leftover equipment at the NASA's Apollo moon landing sites.
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