Especially items like this one: 30 years ago today — March 5, 1979 — Voyager-1 passed Jupiter at a distance of 278,000 kilometers (c. 173,000 miles … closer than the moon is to the earth) and sent back photos and data about the gas giant.
On another note, it’s unfortunate that Voyager had to star in the awful first STAR TREK movie.
In other space history, 35 years ago today the X-24B research vehicle made its first supersonic flight with NASA pilot John A. Manke at the controls. This took place, of course, at Edwards AFB, where I would be stationed just a few years later at the Air Force Rocket Propulsion Laboratory (seen in the background of the attached photo of an X-24B landing; more available here).
(NASA Photo ECN-4351. Click to enlarge.)
Yes, just a precious few years later I was climbing around those test stands on Leuhman Ridge. Those were good days, but these days are good, too.
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