July 8, 1957, the company was founded Control Data Corporation, a pioneer in the production of supercomputers. Among the founders was the legendary engineer Seymour Cray, who invested $ 5,000 from personal savings. Since the founding of the company until the late 1960s, he oversaw the creation of several fastest computers of the time. The worldwide fame of the company Control Data and personally brought a Cray supercomputer CDC 6600, released in 1963.
Supercomputer CDC 6600, 1963
Thanks to the work of Cray and his team of CDC has long held the title of manufacturer of the fastest computers, but in the 1970s, Cray founded and headed his own company Cray Research, which has adopted the title, and competed successfully with the Control Data until the end of the 1980s.
July 8, 1997, the National Aerospace Agency of the USA has published images of the surface of Mars. Images were obtained with the apparatus of the Pathfinder, which successfully landed on the surface of the red planet.
Fragment of the panorama of Mars from the camera apparatus Pathfinder
However, the most remarkable thing about that day was of great interest to the pictures page on the website NASA has set a record, it is unimaginable to the Internet of the time. During the day, the page had been viewed over 46 million times. Even now, many years later, it is considered a huge success. As far as the original images from the surface of Mars, they are still available on the NASA website.
July 8, 2011 was the last flight of space Shuttle Atlantis, which officially ended the Space Shuttle program. Main purpose of the mission number STS–135 was the delivery of equipment and spare parts to the International space station (ISS). On Board Atlantis was only four people, which was explained by the absence of a Shuttle rescue. In case of impossibility to return the Shuttle to Earth, the astronauts would have been evacuated with the help of Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
The Shuttle Atlantis before launch
In total, the flight lasted 12 days 18 hours 27 minutes 56 seconds. Help Russian astronauts not required. On the 21st of July in 9 hours and 57 minutes and the Shuttle landed on the runway of the space center Kennedy.