I remember the STS-1 landing. I was an intern at a stock brokerage and watched the live news and watched the stock ticker slow down as investors awaited the outcome (apparently). The ticker shot back to life as the landing was successful.
@@mitchellyoung8561 there's a long history of Airstreams used at NASA. The Apollo program had Airstream trailers that were loaded onto US aircraft carriers and served as decontamination chambers for the first few moon landings (until scientists were convinced that "moon germs" weren't a thing). They used them afterwards as Astronaut quarters on the aircraft carriers until the Astronauts returned home (via US Navy "COD", or Carrier-On Deck Delivery aircraft).
I miss the Sonic Booms that used to Resonate for Miles around the Antelope Valley when they landed at Edwards Air Force Base. That used to put a Smile on my Face every time.
@@snacklesskerbal2204 could’ve been used for re entry, SR-71 test pilots survived high altitude high speed ejections, I’m sure it would’ve changed the history of Columbia before she broke apart in the atmosphere
@@loganbaileysfunwithtrains606 Wasn't columbia going too fast when it disintegrated anyways? The only way it could have been prevented would have been by sending another vehicle up into orbit to rescue the crew
@@loganbaileysfunwithtrains606 *_"I’m sure it would’ve changed the history of Columbia before she broke apart in the atmosphere"_* Incorrect. Columbia was travelling at Mach 13 at an altitude of 40 miles when it disintegrated.
The Shuttle was originally planned to fly about 600 times by 1991. The reality was that it flew only 44 times by the end of that year, including the Challenger disaster flight. When it was retired in 2011, it had flown only 135 times, including the loss of Columbia in 2003. The Shuttle did many magnificent things, the greatest of which was to repair and service the Hubble Space Telescope, which is still in operation today, but it never lived up to making spaceflight cheaper, safer and routine, the reason why it was built in the first place.
I was there for the first and final 3 launches.....a helluva 30 year long story! I also attended the 30th anniversary of the STS-1 launch at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. At that event I met and took a photo with Chris Ferguson, the commander of the final flight, STS-135. On May 7th, 2011 I met and took a photo with Robert Crippen, the pilot of STS-1, at a presentation he gave about the flight.
I remember well the euphoria surrounding the landing of Columbia for the first time now over 40 years ago. This was a new era, spaceflight was to be much safer, quicker, better and cheaper, with over 50 flights every year predicted. The euphoria did not last long, the crippling problems with the Shuttle started to appear on the very next flight, such as the o rings which doomed Challenger. Less than 5 years later Challenger was blown to pieces during launch and 22 years later, Columbia herself would break up and disintegrate during landing, scattering thousands of her pieces in the Texas and Louisiana countryside. The Shuttle was the most dangerous crewed vehicle for space ever built and had it continued after 2011 when it was retired, another disaster would almost certainly have taken place.
@@lunarmodule5 I've replayed that clip 30 times and sometimes I hear chicken, sometimes chase! Haha look at the word chicken while it's playing, and that's what you'll hear
I'll never forget watching this on TV. My parents came to our house. My husband 11 year old step daughter & my four year old daughter & I were all excited watching the landing. The large blue & white recovery vehicle was seen racing through the desert when our little four year old pointed & shrieked " Look Ice cream van, ice cream van" We laughed & laughed & when the crew descended from the shuttle my husband said "That'll be three 99s please. Make them large ones we've come a long way." The same little girl went on to work in TV production.
Question: When was the parachute implemented? I noticed on every other landing I've seen there was a parachute deployed when the main gear touched down but there wasn't one on this landing.
The parachute was f first used on the maiden flight of Endeavour in 1990. it was a direct consequence of the Challenger disaster...when the Rogers commission uncovered brake and tyre issues when looking at criticality items in the shuttle system during the first 24 missions prior to Challenger. there is some more info here..www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/flyout/B-52_drag_chute_tests.html...regards LM5
Joseph Morobitto I'm better the blown tire on 51D probably expedited the desgin 😀. On that flight they landed about 12 feet left of the center line and proceeded to drift even further left. The only way to steer the Shuttle with no nosewheel steering (or while the nose is still up) is "differential braking". Use the right gear brakes to steer right, left gear brakes to steer left. Very hard on the tires.
It was the inaugural launch of the space shuttle, much like when the RMS Olympic was launched white, the first of the Olympic class vessels which included Titanic, yet afterwards the ship was painted proper black. That was the only reason the tank was painted white.
Don't forget that in the ORIGINAL specs of the shuttle, it called for a white fuel tank. Back then, the designers did not know if the tank could handle the UV-rays with its design (especially since the tank carries very flammable liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen as fuel (both require very cold temperatures to maintain its liquid state)), so to be on the safe side, the tanks were painted white. Since the first 4 Shuttle missions were to test the operational aspects of the various Shuttle components, it was clear by the second flight that white paint was no longer necessary for the external tank. Starting from STS-3, the external tank was left unpainted (the tank in its original form had the orange-y/rust colour that became its characteristic appearance). Also, leaving the tank unpainted resulted in removing roughly 600 pounds of weight from the tank itself!
They painted the tank white to follow the common wisdom of supersonic planes needing to be white to deflect heat. Example: the Concorde. After the first shuttle launch, they left the main tank the orange/brown color because they realized it not only saved weight but wasn't as critical during flight as they had thought.
Braking parachutes were not installed on vehicles until after STS- 51L in 1986 and then only when shuttles went through orbiter modifications, or in the case of Endeavour, during production.
@@lunarmodule5 I remember watching an early STS landing on TV and my father was expecting a chute to deploy. We laughed at him, but in the end that's what they did.
Young and Crippen certainly had big Kahuna's to fly the first shuttle, Even the Russians weren't mad enough to fly their knock off copy "Buran" manned on it's first and only flight, Bit of a shame their funding dried up when the Iron curtain fell, Two fleets may have worked well together....If Only.
81 i was 15 and on my first concert ... Bob Dylan, Loreley/Germany ... My uncle asked me : "Tom, have you some weed" ? "OMG NO Klaus" And he was saying "To bad, but I HAVE" and was swinging a small package in his hand. First concert, first time stoned ... what a year !
666ufoMr If you look at the pictures taken from the chase planes, there are scorch marks on the first landing of the space shuttle. Noticeable since Columbia was white & clean before launch.
