 Sunday, April 12, 1981, Kennedy Space Center, Florida, the Space Shuttle. 14 stories high, 2,000 tons, poised on the pad for its maiden flight. This is Columbia, the spaceship that will orbit the Earth. It's external tank. It holds over 500,000 gallons of fuel for Columbia's three main engines. And the solid rocket boosters, the largest ever used on any launch vehicle, and the first to be employed in a U.S. manned flight. At liftoff, the solid rocket boosters together with the three main engines will unleash more than six and a half million pounds of thrust needed to launch the world's first reusable spacecraft. Never before has a waned vehicle been launched like a rocket, orbited the Earth, returned through frictional heating in excess of 2,500 degrees, and landed. Still aerodynamically sound to be launched again and again. If it succeeds, the Space Shuttle will truly be a remarkable flying machine. There are many other goals to be reached during the 54 and a half hour mission that lies ahead. 144 test objectives are planned for the flight. These objectives could not be achieved without an astronaut crew. The commander, John Young. The pilot, Robert Crippen. Young has already been in space four times for a total of 533 hours. He is the most experienced astronaut flying today. Although Crippen has over 4,000 hours of jet aircraft flying time, this will be his first time in space. The astronauts make their way across the access arm toward the shuttle in the pre-dawn hours before launch. An American spaceship has never carried a human crew on its maiden voyage. At the launch control center three miles from the pad, final steps are being completed in the countdown. Final preparations are also being made in the Mission Control Center in Houston where control of the flight will switch once the shuttle clears the tower. There has not been a manned launch from Kennedy Space Center since the Apollo Soyuz test project in July of 1975. With this launch, Young and Crippen launch controllers at the Cape and flight controllers in Houston will experience the most dynamic, fast-paced series of launch events ever undertaken in the space program. All in less than nine minutes. The most challenging ascent profile ever to be flown by a space vehicle. Photographers, film and television crews, plus newspaper and magazine writers from around the world, nearly 2,700 of them are here to cover the launch. In addition, approximately 600,000 spectators line the coastal area near the Kennedy Space Center. Arriving by every mode of transportation, they have come from every state in the Union and many foreign countries. The promise of a rebirth in America's manned space program and the dawn of a new era in space transportation awaits. 14, 13, T-minus 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4. We've gone for main engine start. Put the shuttle on its precise heading toward an imaginary target in space. Roger, roll complete. The shuttle is now 40 seconds into flight. When you're on a nice ride, you're lofting a little bit. You'll probably be slightly higher at staging. Should anything go wrong, the shuttle is now too high for the astronauts to use their ejection seats. Press to MECO. Columbia, stand by. Press to MECO. Mark it. The shuttle can now continue toward MECO. Main engine cutoff. Stand by, negative return. Columbia can land safely at the Naval Air Station in Rota, Spain, even if two of the three main engines should fail. Right now the engines are generating over 42 million horsepower. Main engine cutoff. Columbia is now in space, traveling over 18,000 miles per hour. The external tank has just been jettisoned and is now falling away from the shuttle back toward Earth. The tank will break up as planned over the Indian Ocean when it comes into contact with the atmosphere. Shortly by firing the ohms, orbital maneuvering system engines, Columbia will achieve orbit. Then one of the most important tests of the mission will be attempted, opening the payload bay doors. The doors must be opened before the end of the sixth orbit to expose the space radiator cooling system. If the radiators cannot be exposed, heat collected from the onboard electronics cannot be released and the astronauts will have to return home. The ohms burns are successful. Columbia is now in orbit, circling the Earth at an altitude of approximately 150 miles. The payload bay doors will now be opened. Both doors have been opened. The radiators can be deployed to begin dissipating the heat. Within minutes, an assessment is completed on the impact these missing tiles could have on the remainder of the mission. At a news conference later in the day, flight director Neil Hutchison answers questions from reporters. You ask me if I knew where there were any other tiles that might be loose? The answer is no. And quite frankly, we're not worried about any other tiles being loose. At this writing, is there anything, anything at all that would lead you to say you might not go for a full duration mission? Nothing. Houston, you guys did so good. We're going to let you stay up there for a couple of days. You're go for on orbit. We agree with that. And Columbia, Houston, just for your information, you dropped those SRVs right on target and they were floating just the way they ought to be and the boats were getting ready to fish them and bring them back. Okay. They arrived at the game was pretty neat. The solid rocket boosters, which separated from the Columbia as planned, two minutes, 11 seconds into the flight landed on target in the Atlantic Ocean, 151 miles downrange from the launch site. After being towed back to Kennedy Space Center, both boosters will be refurbished and used again in a future shuttle flight. The third and fourth ohms burns are also successful, raising Columbia's orbit to an altitude of approximately 172 miles. For the first television transmission from inside the spacecraft, the crew will give a status report on the mission. Okay, crew, we appreciate those comments. I guess that does it. It was a good time and I think you must have practiced. We're just about to lose your ghost song. Just accidents, says Robert Griffin. None of the other events of the day have been accidental. Every test, lift off, SRB separation and recovery, ET separation and impact, four ohms burns, payload bay door latch opening and closing tests, radiator latch deploy and stowing tests have all been successful. I guess we owe you guys one super at a boy for the day. This is fantastic. You work through a pretty long hard day and you're essentially right on schedule, this is going to be close to being a person on the space flight because I think for a first day of activities, it's sure been fun working with you today and we look forward to seeing you in the morning. I hope you get a good night's rest. Okay, you guys did super work today. See you manana. Thank you, see you tomorrow guys. A job well done by the shuttle space team. We can't say she was sleek and lean but I'll take you right now. She's a mean machine. The Columbia, not the kind you smoke. This here's a bird. Hey Columbia, welcome to day two. Today the astronauts will test onboard systems and also review procedures for tomorrow's landing. A test of the flight control system is conducted by John Young. The flight control system operates Columbia's aerial surfaces, the elevons, body flaps, rudder and speed brake. These surfaces are useless in the vacuum of space but will be essential tomorrow when the shuttle lands. This will require precision maneuverability which the aero surfaces provide. Payload bay door cycling tests help ensure that latching and closing procedures can also be done before entry tomorrow. As with every mission, many pictures of the earth are taken by the astronauts. Over 500 on this first shuttle flight, active volcanoes, cloud formations, alluvial fans, giant whirlpools over 15 miles in diameter, sand dunes 1500 feet high running unbroken for hundreds of miles. The high Himalayas where mountain peaks reach 24,000 feet and one of the most remarkable space photographs ever taken of the earth. An area in Iran exposed to wind erosion which has resulted in these breathtaking silt and sandstone formations that look more like a painting than a desert. After lunch on the second day the astronauts receive a phone call from the Vice President of the United States, George Bush. How's it going up there? Everything rocking along alright? Well it's great and everybody views it I'm sure just as the forerunner of great things to come. I think your trip is just going to ignite the excitement and the forward thinking from this country so I really just wanted to call up and wish you the very best. Appreciate it Vice President. The crew also don and check out the ejection suits they will wear during entry. Young, Crippen and Columbia pass every test. They are ready for the final phase of the mission. Entry and landing. The 14th, 1981. NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center on the edge of Rogers Dry Lake bed in California. A recovery convoy of 24 vehicles and more than 100 personnel are assembling here to power down Columbia after landing. Enormous crowds are also beginning to arrive. A string of traffic six miles long waits to enter the base. Thousands more are already here. Close to one half million people will eventually be on hand to see the landing. On board the astronauts suit up for entry. The asset and orbital phases of the mission have gone extremely well. Now the final phase must be completed. Before that begins... Columbia, you have a go for payload bay door closing. The doors, which have been open a total of 47 hours during the flight must now be closed. Then, using the RCS thrusters, Columbia will maneuver into deorbit burn attitude, head down and backwards, fire the ohms engines one last time and descend into the Earth's atmosphere. Columbia is out of contact during the ohms burn. Mission control will not know if this burn was successful until they are in communication with the spacecraft over Australia. It is now over the Indian Ocean on the other side of the world, but from that distance the burn must be precise so that later, Columbia will hit the lakebed target in California. Columbia, this is Houston through Yargote. Columbia is now committed to entry. With an RCS post burn maneuver and several firings, it is oriented to a heads-up, nose-first attitude headed toward entry interface. This is where the atmosphere begins at approximately 400,000 feet. From that moment until the shuttle reaches 165,000 feet, it will be in communication blackout out of touch with mission control for almost 20 minutes. The landing site is almost 4,400 miles from entry interface. Chase planes are preparing to take off. One will call out altitudes and check Columbia for any damage just prior to landing. When the shuttle touches down here, it will be traveling at 216 miles per hour. Right now it's going more than 17,000 miles per hour. Before it lands, it must slow down, lose energy, and it must survive the intense heat caused by traveling through the atmosphere at such a high rate of speed. Several S-turns or roll reversals are used to slow down and maneuver Columbia through the atmosphere. This one is done at 256,000 feet when it is traveling at more than 26 times the speed of sound. This one is done at 208,000 feet. During these two roll reversals, entry heating is most severe with temperatures reaching 2,500 degrees some places on the vehicle. The aluminum skin will melt at 320 degrees. The silicate tiles must insulate the vehicle with tremendous heat. Since there is no test facility on Earth to simulate the aerodynamic and structural environment Columbia is in right now, only calculations could be used to predict what would happen during this phase of the flight. The predictions and calculations had to be right. Columbia Houston's here. How do you read? We couldn't agree more, John. Your state vector's good. We've got the good data in us. The entry trajectory, velocity, and position look good. Columbia is heading for home now only 470 miles away. The shuttle is first sighted at about 100,000 feet with a long-range camera from Anderson Peak, California. The roll reversal is done over Bakersfield, California. The chase has a tally. And we're seeing 1.3 Gs coming around the hatch. The astronauts are making the final turn to line up with the runway. Columbia, you're really looking good. Right on the money, right on the money. And turning on the final, your winds on the surface are calm. You're right on the glideslope, Columbia. Chase reports no tile or other damage is evident underneath the shuttle. Columbia's altitude is now just over 5,000 feet. Without power, Columbia must land. It cannot make another attempt. They're coming. Welcome home, Columbia. Beautiful, beautiful. We're going to test it off first. Voyage on its way. The voyage of Columbia has been a success. The astronauts and the vehicle have met or exceeded all 144 flight test objectives. The integrity of all the systems, propulsion, avionics, structural, flight control, power, and thermal have been affirmed. John Young's comments after returning home. I can't tell you what a tribute that is to the American working man and the American working woman too. You can't imagine the variety of people who worked on this vehicle. From all walks of life, all capabilities and limitations. It's all due to their individual efforts. They prove that they can do the job. They proved it for the world to see. And I'm mighty proud to be associated with folks like them. What a tribute indeed. The Columbia represents an achievement in aerospace technology and development never before realized in the history of manned spaceflight. It is our basic building block for the future. It's what we've been trying to do for the last ten years. We've got a vehicle with a payload performance that will allow us to do that. Much cheaper than we've been able to do it before. It will measurely improve the defensive capability of the country. It will help develop space science and technology. When we get operational, the space shuttle will be able to do in five to ten years what it would have taken us twenty to thirty years to do otherwise. We couldn't do it if we didn't have the space shuttle and that payload cable built in. And the sooner we do those things, the better off the country is going to be. A revolutionary new era in space transportation has just begun. Routine access to space. Welcome to the future.