Wernher von Braun led NASA'S development of the Saturn V rocket that took Apollo 11 to the Moon. His Nazi record was not widely known until after his death.
This timeline highlights the manned and unmanned tests of the Gemini Program. Its main objectives were to test human ability to fly and stay in space for long-durations, to perfect both rendezvous and docking procedures in orbit around the Earth and the moon and to seamlessly re-enter and land.
In the summer of 1973 an anonymous band of women at NASA's Johnson Space Center made a mockery of the beauty contest planned by the agency for its Houston staff.
Read an excerpt from Chasing the Moon: The People, the Politics, and the Promise that Launched America into the Space Program, by Robert Stone and Alan Andres, out June 4, 2019 from Ballantine Books.
In 1969, homosexuality was illegal in almost every state... but that was about to change. The Stonewall riots marked a major turning point in the modern gay civil rights movement.
