In 1984, Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian in space.
Sharma’s crewmates were Yuri Malyshev and Gennady Strekalov from the Soviet Union. Sharma carried out various experiments, including capturing images of northern India ahead of the construction of a dam in the Himalayas.
Learn more at http://ibnlive.in.com/news/rakesh-sharma-was-indias-yuri-gagarin/149000-3.html
In 1926, U.S. astronaut Virgil Grissom was born.
Grissom was one of the seven Mercury astronauts selected by NASA in April 1959. His space flights included Gemini 3, the first crewed Earth-orbiting spacecraft of the Gemini series, and Liberty Bell 7, the second and final suborbital Mercury test flight, on July 21, 1961. He, along with crewmates Edward Higgins White and Roger Bruce Chaffee, died on January 27, 1967, at Kennedy Space Center in the Apollo 1 spacecraft fire.
Learn more at http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/grissom-vi.html
