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The Shuttle Orbiter 101 "Enterprise" soars above the NASA 747 carrier aircraft after separating during the first free flight of the Shuttle Apporach and Landing Tests (ALTs) conducted on August 12, 1977 at Dryden Flight Research Center in Southern California. Astronauts Fred W. Haise Jr., and C. Gordon Fullerton were the crew of the "Enterprise." The ALT free flights are designed to verify Orbiter subsonic airworthiness, integrated systems operations and pilot-guided approach and landing capability and satisfying prerequisites to automatic flight control and navigation mode.

Image taken from Madrid, C.R., ed. (1978) The Nimbus 7 Users’ Guide. Goddard Space Flight

Gemini capsule being tested in Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel

Technicians from the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, which was responsible for producing the Gemini capsule, make final inspections to the Gemini III spacecraft. The photo is taken in the white room, a sterile environment where the spacecraft was prepared for launch, atop the Titan launch vehicle at Pad 19 at the Kennedy Space Center. Gus Grissom and John Young would ride the spacecraft into orbit for the first Gemini mission on a five-hour trip into space on March 23, 1965.

The Gemini III spacecraft is mated with the Titan II launch vehicle in the white room of Pad 19 at the Kennedy Space Center. Virgil I. (Gus) Grissom and John Young rode the capsule into space on March 23, 1965 for a mission lasting almost five hours. The pair of astronauts tested out the spacecraft on the first manned Gemini flight.

Man and woman shown working with IBM type 704 electronic data processing machine used for making computations for aeronautical research at Langley Research Center.

NASA's 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft No. 911, with the space shuttle orbiter Endeavour securely mounted atop its fuselage, taxies to the runway to begin the ferry flight from Rockwell's Plant 42 at Palmdale, California, where the orbiter was built, to the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. At Kennedy, the space vehicle was processed and launched on orbital mission STS-49, which landed at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Facility (now Armstrong Flight Research Center), Edwards, California. NASA 911, the second modified 747 that went into service in November 1990, has special support struts atop the fuselage and internal strengthening to accommodate the added weight of the orbiters.

Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3) Prelaunch Activities on the Mercury 5 launch pad.

View of the Apollo 9 Lunar Module "Spider" in a lunar landing configuration photographed by Command Module pilot David Scott inside the Command/Service Module "Gumdrop" on the fifth day of the Apollo 9 earth-orbital mission. The landing gear on "Spider" has been deployed. lunar surface probes (sensors) extend out from the landing gear foot pads. Inside the "Spider" were astronauts James A. McDivitt, Apollo 9 Commander; and Russell L. Schweickart, Lunar Module pilot.

The Columbia Space Shuttle lifted off on March 22, 1982. Perlmutter depicted a parallel strip of tropical foliage, paying homage to the Florida landscape Columbia was leaving behind.

This was the first time that the newly inaugurated space shuttle would carry humans, in this case the two-person crew of John Young and Robert Crippen.

Engine on Torque Stand at the Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory in Cleveland, Ohio, now known as the John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field. Torque is the twisting force produced by a spinning object - propellers create a lot of it.

Attired in a Russian Orlan spacesuit, astronaut Michael E. Lopez-Alegria, Expedition 14 commander and NASA space station science officer, participates in an underwater spacewalk simulation in the Hydrolab facility at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia. SCUBA-equipped divers are in the water to assist the crewmembers in their rehearsal, intended to help prepare them for work on the exterior of the station.

This is the first image ever taken of Earth from the surface of a planet beyond the Moon. It was taken by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit one hour before sunrise on the 63rd Martian day, or sol, of its mission. The image is a mosaic of images taken by the rover's navigation camera showing a broad view of the sky, and an image taken by the rover's panoramic camera of Earth. The contrast in the panoramic camera image was increased two times to make Earth easier to see.The inset shows a combination of four panoramic camera images zoomed in on Earth. The arrow points to Earth. Earth was too faint to be detected in images taken with the panoramic camera's color filters.

The world's first view of Earth taken by a spacecraft from the vicinity of the Moon. The photo was transmitted to Earth by the United States Lunar Orbiter I and received at the NASA tracking station at Robledo De Chavela near Madrid, Spain. This crescent of the Earth was photographed August 23, 1966 at 16:35 GMT when the spacecraft was on its 16th orbit and just about to pass behind the Moon.

Galileo Probe descending into Jupiter's Atmosphere shows heat shield separation with parachute deployed, as it "hangs on the shrouds" and samples the atmosphere of the largest planet in the solar system, a key moment in the flight of Galileo. The probe entered the sunlit side of Jupiter's atmosphere and provided the first direct sampling of the planet's atmosphere. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory had over-all management responsibility for Galileo. NASA's Ames Research Center was responsible for development of the probe.

After six years of silence, the thunder of human spaceflight was heard again, as the successful launch of the first space shuttle ushered in a new concept in utilization of space. Mission STS-1, on Space Shuttle Columbia, launched from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center just seconds past 7 a.m. on April 12, 1981.  It carried astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen on an Earth-orbital mission scheduled to last for 54 hours. The mission ended with the Space Shuttle Columbia landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.