Twenty years after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s first spaceflight, NASA inaugurated a new era of reusable spacecraft on this day in 1981 with the daring first launch of the space shuttle program carrying astronauts John Young and Bob Crippen into orbit. Read more: https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/04/12/april-12-marks-60-years-since-gagarins-historic-spaceflight-40-years-since-shuttle-debut/ | Spaceflight Now

26K views · 363 reactions | March 25th - on this day in 2006, SpaceX conducted its first ever orbital launch attempt from the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site in the Marshall Islands. However, the Falcon 1 rocket's single Merlin 1A engine failed early into the flight and the rocket fell into the sea. This was the first of three consecutive launch failures of the Falcon 1. | NASASpaceflight.com | Facebook