Archive for April 12, 2024
First Space Shuttle Launch
April 12, 1981
NASA launches the first Space Shuttle mission, STS-1, sending the Columbia on its maiden voyage. This mission intended to prove the feasibility of the Space Shuttles in specific, and reusable spacecraft in general. Originally set to launch on April 10th, problems delayed the launch by two days, which caused the launch to occur exactly 20 years after Yuri Gagarin became the first man to fly into space.
Who in the World is Ronald Wayne?
April 12, 1976
Ronald Wayne, one of the three co-founders of Apple Computer, leaves the company just eleven days after it was established, selling his ten percent share for $800. In his short time with the company, Wayne illustrated the first Apple logo, wrote the company’s partnership agreement, and wrote the manual for the Apple I. He choose to leave the company because the partnership agreement imposed unlimited personal liability on all three co-founders, regardless of which partner incurred the debt. Unlike Jobs and Wozniak, 21 and 25, Wayne had personal assets that potential creditors could seize. The failure of a slot machine company he had started five years earlier also contributed to his decision to exit the partnership. Wayne would later say that, “Either I was going to be bankrupt or the richest man in the cemetery.” By 1982, a ten percent share of Apple Computer was worth US$1.5 billion. And in 2010 it was worth $22 billion. They say hindsight is 20/20 … or perhaps $22 billion?
First Man in Space
April 12, 1961
Yuri Gagarin, age 27, becomes the first man to orbit the Earth aboard the Soviet spacecraft, Vostok 1. He remains in space for an hour and forty-eight minutes before re-entering the atmosphere. This ultimately was Gagarin’s only space flight. He died on March 27, 1968 when the MiG-15 he was piloting crashed near Moscow. Reportedly, at the time of his death, Yuri Gagarin was in training for a second space mission.