Space Shuttle Columbia First Launch
by Jim DeLillo
Title
Space Shuttle Columbia First Launch
Artist
Jim DeLillo
Medium
Photograph - Digital Photo
Description
I was assignment for Popular Mechanics magazine. 1981
Space Shuttle Columbia sits on the launchpad at dawn while I spent two nights sleeping in the car as the first launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia was scrubbed for two days due to a computer glitch.
STS-1 (Space Transportation System-1) was the first orbital spaceflight of NASA's Space Shuttle program. The first orbiter, Columbia, launched on 12 April 1981 and returned on 14 April, 54.5 hours later, having orbited the Earth 36 times. Columbia carried a crew of two – mission commander John W. Young and pilot Robert L. Crippen. It was the first American crewed space flight since the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project in 1975. STS-1 was also the only maiden test flight of a new American spacecraft to carry a crew, though it was preceded by atmospheric testing of the orbiter and ground testing of the Space Shuttle system.
The launch occurred on the 20th anniversary of the first human spaceflight. This was a coincidence rather than a celebration of the anniversary; a technical problem had prevented STS-1 from launching two days earlier, as was planned. ~Wikipedia
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December 10th, 2020
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