STS-1: Part1 April 12, 1981

[ilmsff7]

Hail Columbia.

[burnstagger]

And to think the Chinese stole the plans to this bastard.

[darthfurious80]

1 person didn't want to blast off into space...

[ogatan1976]

もうスペースシャトルの打ち上げを見れないと思うと、寂しいです­。早く次世代の宇宙船を見てみたいです。

[da40flyer1]

I wish NASA TV would start showing these old films again. These are priceless and fascinating to watch.

[luebsmx8]

I've never seen footage like this before. Amazing. Can't wait for STS-135!

[BarryPuppetSoetoro61]

Long Live STS-1..30 Years In the Waiting. Bob Crippen,John Young Forever.

[invertballer12]

Actually this is safer than apollo

[MrGeeBeeEss]

Apollo: 13 flights with no loss of payload.

Shuttle program: 129 flights with two catastrophic failures resulting in 14 deaths.

[invertballer12]

@MrGeeBeeEss You forgot about apollo 1

[MrGeeBeeEss]

I was referring to actual in-flight performance. But yes, three people died on the ground in a "plugs-out test" in preparation for AS-204 (apollo 1).

[kineticdeath]

@MrGeeBeeEss though it may seem fair to say that no accidents from 13 flights is great, but would those same odds carry for 129 flights? 129 flights of an extremely complicated piece of hardware with 2 failures albeit tragic is remarkable considering the million possible issues. In a nutshell 0 fails from 13 doesnt make 2 from 129 seem appaling and program destructive.

Those 14 crew and 2 ships lost will never die, they are exploring the heavens forever

[flashfast2000]

@invertballer12 I can't agree with your statement. The Apollo system had abort systems effective from launch till orbit, something the shuttle does not have. Don't get me wrong, the shuttle is still cool and I never miss a launch.

[oswego22]

amazingly brave, no escape system, no control over the solid rocket boosters, far more risky than apollo

[maritrix]

beautiful classic report.... thanks

[wimicon]

there were three colours of the external tank white, dark orange and light orange

[chillaxer1993]

My mom reported on itslanding at rogers

[tonewheel]

One of the only launches where the main fuel tank was painted (white). In future flights, it was only primed, saving thousands of pounds of weight.

I watched this flight while working in London, at lunchtime in the flat of a friend.

[Crisgo3d]

Ok correct me if I am wrong but can anyone notice anything different about the external tank. I was told the first two shuttle missions had a white external tank before they made them red. Did they change the material, is that why its red now?

[ujezd1]

simple reason - it use to be painted and NASA decided to save some waight from this white colour - think smtgh like a 300-500 kg so about 800 pounds or so red colour is just "which old unpainted metal get from oxigenation" sry I do not know the word for this .....

Regards from an old shuttle fan from Prague

[santa22622]

Also on a second note it MAY of been colored RED/ORANGE to make flying shrapnel visitable because the shuttle itself is white and if the tank is white they wont be able to see if anything flys off the ship and in space they would know and fix the shuttle for a safe landing.

[mach25man]

The orange color is nothing more than the a chemical reaction of the foam with air after its spayed on. You dont see metal after the manufacturing process. The white paint was spayed over the foam for the first 2 missions.

[glhs386]

The day I was born. I feel old.

[ingareinar007]

The space-technology has given us things we all use in our everyday life. Strange many doesn`t know this!

[jacko39]

great and interesting video.

[bonzelite]

too bad the Shuttle was obsolete before they made it.

Had we stuck with Apollo, we'd be on Mars by now. But instead we went nowhere for a generation.

[astronautintraining]

uh, you're wrong.

[bonzelite]

tell me how I'm wrong. The Shuttle didn't need to be made. It's not versatile and it was a total waste of money. The science conducted on board could have been done adapting Apollo technology + used to go to the other planets. But not the Shuttle.

So for 30+ years, an entire generation has been wasted and deprived of human space flight advancement.

[Neptuneaus]

You're wrong. Have you heard of a something called the "space station?" Watch and see how pivotal a role the S.S. plays as we begin to colonize the moon and eventually, Mars.

[bonzelite]

the SS is a corporate welfare project. we are no closer to colonizing anything.

[joshatkins94]

The Shuttle was a nice idea, but it didn't turn out how NASA had hoped. If had done, it really would have revolutionized space.

Having said that, it has achieved a fair bit. Built the ISS, deployed 66 satellites, done 113 spacewalks, done 9 Mir dockings and 23 ISS dockings, and done 123 flights. And those figures are almost a year and a half old (from Wikipedia).

But I still wish we'd stuck with Apollo-technology. The Apollo Applications Program would've been great.

[Dragonx0562]

We Have stuck with Apollo-Technology...

Look at Ares i, and Ares V.

[Crisgo3d]

No, I disagree. The Shuttle allowed for large numbers of astronauts to go into space. It was used to carry large payloads into space and more experiments. The goal of the shuttle was to be used to build the I.S.S. The fact that the Shuttle was reusable was a good idea for the program to save money too

[Mundellproductions]

Yay! It's april 12th!!!!!!!!

[frantic1971]

Watched this live on tv when it happened back in 1981.The younger people who grew up watching shuttle launches can't imagine what an impression this first-ever shuttle launch was.Prior to this we had Saturn V launches which were slow and lumbering and seemed to barely make it off the ground.Here we had the shuttle engines start at 8 seconds and then at zero BOOM the solids kicked in and whoosh it went up fast!People were awestruck-they had never seen the like! A tremendous impression of POWER!

[jnkirk1974]

I remember being in 1st grade and MAN.......this made a serious impression on me. I wanted to be astronaut John Young! Because of the first space shuttle, I became a huge fan of the space program!

[bstep13]

Old School Space Shuttle Cool!!! I have the IMAX DVD About the First Launch Very Very Very Unique!!!!!!!!

[debeurs]

thank you thank you !!

[IntermittentSprocket]

Hail Columbia fine spacecraft the world's most complex machine ever built by man. I remember see her on the launch pad back in February 1982 waiting for her maiden flight. I watched the first live test launch back in February on TV, only days after see her at the Cape. I watched her live televised launch on TV back in the UK.

[Connecticut2009]

The shuttle have 23.000 Tons in thruus in single soon boosters dro´ppenone thousand miles pe hours

[Engine7601]

I am going to fly this mission in a week or so in a new simulator called Space Shuttle Mission 2007

[pilot7893]

Lucky! I'm still $30 away!

[boy44412]

you can see the paint on the lower part of the tank is all charred. and all that debris falling off after it, paint, or ice, or tiles.

[Ymeth]

Yeah well...only in the 2-men missions ejections seats had any real use and only for roughly the first 30 seconds of flight.

[Zoomer30]

And the first US manned spacecraft since Gemini to have ejection seats ( they REALLY did not know all they needed to know)

[alijanlondon]

Thanks for this. Extremely brave men, no unmanned test flights. And the orbiter suffered more damage than would be tolerated today.