tallship@socialhome.network<p>STS-1: The first launch of the Space Shuttle - Columbia, with astronauts Robert Crippen and John Young crewing on 12 April 1981:
<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/launch-of-sts-1-from-ksc-complex-39" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/launch-of-sts-1-from-ksc-complex-39</a></p>
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<p>This was not, "The First Space Shuttle". Enterprise was the first space shuttle, enshrined on the Intrepid Museum at Pier 86 in Hell's Kitchen.</p>
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<p>Enterprise was deployed into service on 17 September 1976 without engines or a heat shield in order to test shuttle transport, re-entry, landing and runway taxiing. Originally and eventually twice intended to be retrofitted for launch duty those subsequent plans were scrubbed because there was a slight design change during the construction of Columbia, so Challenger was constructed from later versions of test article components from the Columbia build.</p>
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<p>Enterprise, it's namesake itself an homage to the various vessels named U.S.S. Enterprise; NCC-1701 of Star Trek fame, CVN-65 the very first nuclear powered carrier, and of course CV-6 - The <strong>"Big E"</strong>, responsible for having downed a thousand planes, and destroying 300 ships in WWII.</p>
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<em>USS Enterprise, NCC-1701 in 1966</em></p>
<p> <em>USS Enterprise, CVN-65 - the world's first nuclear powered aircraft carrier</em></p>
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<em>"The Big E", as CV6, perhaps the most famous of all the incarnations of the USS Enterprise are, and the most decorated ship of WWII</em></p>
<p>The Second time Enterprise received the nod for retrofit it was to replace Challenger following her demise, but Endeavor was built instead from again, leftovers.</p>
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<em>At 59 seconds, Challenger was go at throttle up, then children and their parents all around the world stopped breathing</em></p>
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<em>The crew of Challenger for mission STS-51L</em></p>
<p>The incident in this article by NASA is about the first flight, not the first Space Shuttle, as saying so is disingenuous and misleading. Only after a long career was Enterprise retcon'd into prototype status, as it had been designed to always be an orbiter.</p>
<p>STS-1 was the first manned space shuttle launch, with two astronauts aboard - mission commander Robert Young and pilot Robert Crippen, who would make the approach and bring down Columbia onto the runway at Edwards Air Force base in manual deadstick fashion instead of allowing the autopilot computer software to land the spaceship.</p>
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<em>Robert L. Crippen manually landing Columbia at Edwards AFB on 14 April 1981.</em></p>
<p>An interesting fact about the mission that is hardly ever mentioned, but was a very significant source of anxiety and relative uncertainty at the time was that even though Columbia was designed to land by automatic computer controlled software re-entry procedures (aka autopilot), when it eventually did re-enter the atmosphere it was determined on approach of Edwards Air Force Base in California that pilot Robert L. Crippen would manually pilot the spacecraft upon runway approach and subsequently land the space shuttle manually, by hand, without computer assistance.</p>
<p>Also not widely known is the very public existence of a second series of space shuttles, very similar in most respects, and almost identical in many, that were designed <cough, cough>, and built by the Soviet Union - Yup, they worked really well, and they've been keeping them in hangers for almost 40 years in prisine condition.</p>
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<em>It takes a lot of care to maintain a fleet of Baran spacecraft.</em>
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<em>Russians have bee really good about the upkeep of their Baran space craft, they've even gone so far as to always maintain a backup in case one is scrubbed for a mission at the last minute, with just the right amount of bird guano as a light protective coating.</em></p>
<p>What happened to that Russian fleet of space shuttles? They sucked, no surprise, bigtime, and only one was ever launched. After that, they were litterally abandoned in their hangers. They even built the world's largest plane to fly these puppies around all over and show them off.</p>
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<em>An Antonov AN-225, the worlds largest plane in the world until the Russians destroyed it during the first couple of days of their war against Ukraine. PIggybacked on top is the Baran spacecraft itself.</em></p>
<p>There have been many subsequent space endeavors by many countries since the United States' space shuttle program, but the experience and information gathered and learned in the process of all the STS series of missions continues to fuel and guide the continuing NASA missions in a way that other space programs could in no way achieve.</p>
<p>So on this day, the 14th of April, the 43rd annivesary of the 1st flight of the space shuttle, take just a moment to ponder what all of the great acheivements were of the 20th century, and how are attitudes have changed with the advent of new technologies, as we're harnessed with new information and understanding of the world we live in. For example, as you'll note, astronauts Young and Crippen are just casually strolling away from Columbia and heading for their shuttle ride and a shower. No Quarantine, like all of the Apollo astronauts returning from the moon had to endure, and for whatever reason, there was actually a computer onboard Columbia that was responsible for automatically taking over the controls of the spacecraft during descent at <em>Mach 25</em>, then acuiring and navigating the landing path, even the landing itself.</p>
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<em>John Young and Robert L. Crippen disembarking Columbia after successfully touching down on April 14th, 1981</em></p>
<p>We can do anything if we put our heads together in cooperation as a team. And let's not forget that Margaret Hamilton put two men on the moon in 1969 with a total of 8k of memory, okay? I'll have more on that in another story.</p>
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<li>Margaret Hamilton in 1995 - the world's first Software Engineer, by the way ;)*</li>
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<p>Enjoy!</p>
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<p>⛵</p>
<p>.</p>