NASA's space shuttle fleet turns 25

By Tariq Malik

updated 2:45 p.m. ET April 12, 2006

Two astronauts, one space plane and NASA’s shuttle era began today in 1981 as the Columbia orbiter launched into the morning skies above Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Columbia, NASA’s first spaceworthy shuttle, launched into orbit on its maiden STS-1 flight at 7:00 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT) with veteran Apollo and Gemini astronaut John Young at the helm and first-time spaceflyer Robert Crippen as pilot.

“To fly on the first one was a test pilot’s dream,” Crippen told SPACE.com 25 years after his spaceflight debut. “It was an exciting ride.”

Today, NASA’s shuttle fleet is headed towards a 2010 retirement without ever attaining its goal of quick and affordable space access. The fleet’s technical accomplishments as the world’s first reusable spacecraft are marred by two fatal accidents that claimed the lives of 14 astronauts and two orbiters; Challenger in 1986 and Columbia herself in 2003.

“We’ve learned a great deal,” Young told SPACE.com. “And that’s why you fly a test flight, so you can learn.”

54 hours of firsts
Young and Crippen spent more than 54 hours in Earth orbit shaking down Columbia.

They opened its payload bay doors, checked its reaction control thrusters and put the orbiter through its paces before landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

“Everything worked,” Young told a crowd of 1,000 shuttle workers at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida last week. “I was really surprised.”

Slide show NASA's highs and lows 45 years of achievements and tragedies in America's human spaceflight effort. more photos

Unlike today, when NASA flight controllers are in near-constant contact with orbiter crews via satellites, STS-1 depended on ground communications systems to speak with mission control. That dependency led to some tense moments as the STS-1 crew made their plunge through the Earth’s atmosphere with only Columbia’s heat-resistant ceramic tiles and blankets for protection.

Back on Earth, Wayne Hale — then a propulsion systems support flight controller at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston — waited anxiously for Columbia to radio in.

“We had talked to them from the Guam relay station and gave them their last weather report and then we had about 30 minutes before they came over the horizon at Edwards,” said Hale, who is now NASA’s space shuttle program manager at JSC. “That was maybe the longest 30 minutes of my life.”

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