It was the first ever space flight of a completely new space transport system, and with a crew on board at once. We must pay tribute to the courage of John Young and Robert Crippen who brilliantly performed the flight. Thanks for this video! I am especially pleased to remember this flight, because in 1995 John Young personally answered my letter. Russia, St. Petersburg.
That is really cool. The Space Shuttle is one of the Greatest achievements in the history of mankind... If our two countries had put as much effort into exploring space together as we have spent in fear of each other, we'd have bases on the moon, I'm sure. We'd be seeing amazing things... Human nature is unfortunate, sometimes.
Hard to understate how bold this was. Even with the Saturn rockets, they live tested each component, then flew the whole thing unmanned a few times to shake out the problems. The shuttle was assembled and had to launch, orbit, go through the fiery RE-ENTRY, and land unpowered all for the first time.
From my point of view it wasn't bold - it was stupid and dangerous. The whole program was a death trap, beginning with the first flight that already was crewed, continuing with the "black zones" during a launch where a failure had been unsurvivable, continuing with the heat shield problems that never had been solved and finally with the problems with the solid rocket boosters. NASA made some huge mistakes at that time and 14 people paid the ultimate price for these mistakes.
@kennethmiller1029 Well, where the Saturn V was Von Braun's vision, you could say STS was a truly American vision. Hence explaining the... lets say weird, design choices.
Wow you guys are little bitches. Yes, it was a risky system with immense capability. I wouldn't have hesitated to ride into orbit in one, especially with the large throat SSMEs. The HPOTPs were tested so thoroughly they would fly with cracked blades because the crack propagation characteristics were so well understood (and this was in Block 1 engines at 104.5%). Furthermore, a few design trades like titanium airframe (higher heat pulse tolerance would've reduced heat shield requirements immensely), electric flight surfaces instead of hydrazine gas generator hydraulics, and an armored crew cabin with explosive separation capability would have ameliorated a lot of the programs safety issues. Unfortunately politics of the possible saw NASA twist arms to force the DoD into Shuttle as its KH-11 launcher which mean 60k lb payloads (right at the limit) directly into polar orbit with a ton of crossrange and keeping existing contrators in business (hypergolics vs gear-reduced servos) meant risk went up in a design that wasn't as fundamentally flawed as current fashionable revisionism.
I watched this back then when I was 10 and immediately wanted one of those Revell plastic model kits of the Shuttle. Got one the week after. It is still on display in my office.
Yeah, I was 9 1/2 back then and I remember well I had a sleepover at my grandparents house. They wanted me to go to bed, but I knew this thing was landing at 10:30 local time approximately. So I convinced them I really wanted to see the first landing and I did.
I was given the same kit back in the early 80s. I don't have that model anymore, but my wife bought a recent edition of it for me a few years ago. It brought back memories of building it the first time.
I remember watching this mission on TV, I always loved the Columbia and was heart broken when she and her crew were lost. I remember the look in John Young's eyes, I cannot imagine how he must have felt. Thank you for posting this.
We watched this in the Netherlands live on TV, and I even recorded the sound from the TV speaker with a microphone on a tape recorder! I was too young when the Saturn Vs were launched, and somehow always regretted missing that, so I definitely wanted to catch this momentous occasion.
After watching the Apollo splashdowns, the real game-changer for me was when Columbia's landing gear came out. I thought--Wow--it really is going to land like an airplane! 😀
I'm so happy I was born in during the Space Shuttle Program. I got to witness space travel become a normal occurrence! And now that I'm fully grown, the internet is showing me all of the things I missed growing up. Wonderful time to be here!
Awesome video. Can't help but play "Countdown" by Rush in my head at the same time. They used actual NASA audio for the song. Godspeed Columbia and Challenger, never forgotten.
RIP John Young (along with the crews of the ill-fated STS-51-L & STS-107 misisons). He was one of 3 men who have been to the Moon twice (Apollos 10 & 16) along with Jim Lovell & the late great Eugene Cernan. I remember watching the launch on TV. It had been aborted to a computer glitch and the actual launch took place on the 20th anniversary of the first manned orbital spaceflight by Yuri Gagarin. Joe Engle ended up commanding STS-2.
Retro Space HD, thank you very much for such an amazing video. I love the Space Shuttle Program and especially the STS-1 mission with these brave men who, faced with the dangers of this inaugural flight, fulfilled their mission and made history. Long live John Young and Robert Crippen, the best crew for the first Shuttle flight into space. Hail Space Shuttle Columbia, thank you very much. Congratulations 👍👨🚀 
I was there. I was 15 at the time. My dad worked for Dreyden Flight Research center at Edwards. We had viewing much closer than the general public was allowed. We had been several hours early and we went on a walk around Edwards and my dad found an arrowhead that was later dated to more than 3000 years old. I still have that arrowhead today. My dad knew all of these test pilots and astronauts and I remember having boxes full of regalia that was given to my dad over the years the shuttle was being developed. It was great being part of a historical event.
I saw the landing on public viewing side at E.A.F.B.. The double sonic boom was always great to hear. 7 months later, again I got to see STS2 land on the eastern viewing side. However, it was from an ambulance because I got in a motorcycle wreck t-boning a p/u truck. I lived in the Antelope Valley at the time. Thanks for posting this.
I remember watching this live when I was in 3rd grade. We were glued to the TV. We were all too young to remember the moon landing, so to us, this was a really big deal. I was in 8th grade when we lost Challenger and was watching it at school too...as were many school kids due to the first teacher in space. The shuttle program is a part of my childhood. I'm very glad I got to take my daughter, when she was in 3rd grade, to see the very last shuttle to launch. We got to visit the launch pad with the shuttle on it. Being that close to it was amazing.
Similar vintage. I was in grade 9 when we lost Challenger, and took my kids to see the launch of STS131, but it got delayed and we missed it. It was still cool to see the shuttle on the pad.
Has to be one of the bravest test flights of all time. So many moments of this flight, life was pretty much dependent on computer analysis, simulation, and predictions.
Not quite. They had dropped the orbiter off a 747 several times to test its glide characteristics so it wasn’t all analysis and simulation, at least not for the landing. I guess they could have flown it unmanned first, like the Russians did with their shuttle, but I guess the astronauts insisted. They didn’t want monkeys going first like on Mercury
Mine as well. I was heartbroken when she and her crew were lost. I was thrilled to see Discovery at the Smithsonian, but I couldn’t help but think it should have been Columbia sitting there.
Thank you, Retro, for the look back. Remember it well, getting up early to watch it, (was 19 YO), though I don't recall ever seeing that shot of the external fuel tank drifting away after detaching. What a shot! All the best.
@@massmike11 Yes, but the cost of launching Shuttle was greater than the cost of Hubble. The open secret at the time was that it would have been faster and cheaper to launch a new Hubble-class telescope on an expendable rocket in place of each servicing mission.
Great vid thank you. The only RCS test I had never seen was shuttle. This should be posted in the nasaspaceflight shuttle forums! You deserve the views.
I knew a member of my flight club while I was in college who worked for NASA's "White Sands" (actually Las Cruces) test facility. In 1991, I was invited out to see a test of the nose RCS package in their facility that abuts the Organ Mountains...they fed the RCS rockets with mission data that was collected from earlier shuttle flights. It was really loud, even with hearing protection from a safe distance! I can only imagine how loud it was inside the crew compartment...I understand that a few very short RCS rocket burns would happen per hour on a typical mission, automatically fired by the computers as they compared collected telemerety to the flight plan ideal position. It's like a hammer, instant on and instant off. The test was around sunset, so seeing the flame plumes from the individual RCS thrusters was awesome 👌 Lots of safety precautions, though, as monomethyl hydrazine is used as the propellant.
13:29 - the SRB ignition was so violent that it permanently bend the rear body flap, which was used to help control orientation during descent - the crew were never told of this, and if they had - the pilot mentioned they would have bailed out after SRB burn and Columbia would have been lost then and there.
Even in Japan, it was broadcast repeatedly despite several postponements. I was a high school student at the time. The few seconds from ignition to launch felt very long. And the TV screen continued to show it until the SSME vanished into a faint glow after dumping the SRBs.
Second-most courage, anyway. Vladimir Kamarov was pretty sure he would die even before the ill-fated Soyuz 1 had left the ground. It simply wasn't ready to fly, but they flew it anyway and if he didn't go his friend Gagarin was the backup.
THAT was fantastic! Thank you. My dad was stationed at Tinker AFB in Midwest City, OK when we got to see the "piggy back" shuttle fly in for refueling. Awesome.
I cut out of school on 4/10/81 to watch the launch but was disappointed when the launch was scrubbed. On the 12th, I woke up early and was tuned to channel 7 watching Frank Reynolds, Gene Cernan and Jules Bergman describing the magnificent launch. I’ll never forget when Bergman stated, “American thunder in the skies.”
I remember watching Columbia’s first flight on TV at school. I was in 2nd grade, and I remember being fascinated by it all. I also remember when we lost Columbia and Challenger. Both sad, heartbreaking events. 🙏🏻💔🕊️😢
It was a miracle this flight made it back in one piece. From the STS-1 wiki entry : ------- Mission anomalies STS-1 was the first orbital test flight of what NASA claims was, at the time, the most complex flying machine ever built. Roughly 70 anomalies were observed during and after the flight, owing to the many components and systems that could not otherwise be adequately tested. Notable anomalies included: - Similar to the first Saturn V launch in 1967, engineers underestimated the amount of noise and vibration produced by the Space Shuttle. Shock waves from the SRB thrust were deflected up into the orbiter's tail section, which flexed the wing flaps and bent several fuel tank supports; Columbia could have had trouble landing if the flaps had been damaged. An improved sound suppression system was later installed in LC-39A to damp vibrations. - Pilot Crippen reported that, throughout the first stage of the launch up to SRB separation, he saw "white stuff" coming off the External Tank and splattering the windows, which was probably the white paint covering the External Tank's thermal foam. - The astronauts' on-orbit visual inspection showed significant damage to the thermal protection tiles on the OMS/RCS pods at the orbiter's aft end, and John Young reported that two tiles on the nose looked like someone had taken "big bites out of them". The U.S. Air Force also photographed the orbiter using a KH-11 KENNEN reconnaissance satellite. Due to the top secret nature of the satellite, only a small number of NASA personnel were aware of this, and they had arranged for the photography prior to the launch as a precaution to make sure no damage had been done to the thermal tiles on the underside of the orbiter, as there had never been a flight of a crewed spacecraft before where the heat shield was exposed to the vacuum of space for the entire duration of the mission. Young and Crippen were instructed to perform maneuvers with the RCS thrusters to align Columbia so that the KH-11 could photograph it, but were not informed of the reason for them. Aligning the shuttle's low Earth orbit with the KH-11's polar orbit was a somewhat tricky move, and launch on April 12 was scheduled for a few minutes after the launch window opened, due to the need to get the KH-11 into correct orientation for imaging the shuttle. Images obtained confirmed that damage to Columbia was not serious. Post-flight inspection of Columbia confirmed that approximately 16 undensified tiles near the OMS pod had been lost during ascent. - Columbia's aerodynamics at high Mach numbers during reentry were found to differ significantly in some respects from those estimated in pre-flight testing. A misprediction of the location of the center of pressure (due to using an ideal gas model instead of a real gas model) caused the computer to have to extend the body flap by sixteen degrees rather than the expected eight or nine. Also, the first roll manoeuvre resulted in lateral and directional oscillations during which side slip angles of up to 4° were reached. This was twice as high as predicted. Analysis attributed the cause to unexpectedly large rolling moments due yaw RCS jet firings. During the early stages of entry, orbiter roll control is achieved as a result of sideslip modulation. - The orbiter's heat shield was damaged when an overpressure wave from the solid rocket booster caused a forward Reaction control system (RCS) oxidizer strut to fail. - The same overpressure wave also forced the orbiter body flap - an extension on the orbiter's underbelly that helps to control pitch during reentry - into an angle well beyond the point where cracking or rupture of its hydraulic system would have been expected. Such damage would have made a controlled descent impossible, with John Young later admitting that had the crew known about this, they would have flown the shuttle up to a safe altitude and ejected, causing Columbia to be lost on the first flight. Young had reservations about ejection as a safe abort mode due to the fact that the SRBs were firing throughout the ejection window, but he justified taking this risk because, in his view, an inoperative body flap would have made landing and descent "extremely difficult if not impossible." - The strike plate next to the forward latch of Columbia's external tank door was melted and distorted due to excess heat exposure during reentry. This heat was attributed to an improperly installed tile adjacent to the plate. - During remarks at a 2003 gathering, John Young stated that a protruding tile gap filler ducted hot gas into the right main landing gear well, which caused significant damage, including the buckling of the landing gear door. He said that neither he nor Crippen were told about this incident and he was not aware that it had happened until reading the postflight mission report for STS-1, also adding that the gas leak was noted in the report, but not the buckling of the landing door. (The buckling of the door is in fact in the anomaly report, anomaly STS-1-V-49). Despite these problems, the STS-1 mission was completed successfully, and in most respects Columbia performed optimally. After some modifications to the Shuttle and to the launch and reentry procedures, Columbia flew the next four Shuttle missions. -------
Annotations to a couple of the Wiki entries, from my personal experience: * Ahead of the first flight, NASA was quite aware of the potential for acoustic damage. Statisticians Bendat & Persol were hired to analyze acoustic data from static tests of the solid and liquid motors, hoping to gain insight into how that might affect the tiles. * Misjudgements as to orbiter aerodynamics had consequences beyond reentry kinematics: The wing structure was simply designed to the wrong loads. As the orbiter's program manager put it in 1985, "We're flying on strain gauges." Had the design payload weight been present in the payload bay during that first re-entry, the wings would have failed.
I was 14 years old in 1981, ever interested in the shuttle program, i remember have seen the launch and landing in Mexican TV news, 26:50 see you mañana, the great Columbia!
Unfortunately I remember sitting in stunned silence in 6th grade after the class watched the challenger exploded . The hole school was doing a space week in anticipation of the live school room events. The teacher just turned 0ff the TV and told us to take out our math books
I remember this really clearly, it was an incredible moment, a reusable space plane that had so many 'new' design features the maiden flight. No little steps to make the big step. Just a very big brave step into the complete unknown. And as we learned this rocket and shuttle is a killer. Flying to space and re-entry to earth is never going to be a walk in the park. The SpaceX fans are going to get a reality check soon. It's only a matter of time.
I remember this day so well, it was very exciting. Some unintentional foreshadowing of the foam and heat shield issues (they never really got on top to of that) and you also see the beginnings of the shirt-sleeve myth, that the shuttle was really just an airplane that could go to space (it wasn't) and that all the refinements of a modern airliner would make using it a breeze. The reality was it was a hypersonic hazmat freight truck operating mostly within an envelope that was absolutely hostile to human survival, and prior to Challenger outcomes, no effective escape system. The Soviet Buran was an interesting project in this regard because they absolutely refused a solid-fuel booster system and had an atmospheric escape method but the thing was so expensive it was doomed to fail and only flew one unmanned mission. That said I'm glad the STS existed and that all those engineers got to contribute so much.
As of writting this later this year the spiritual successor to the shuttle is set to be launched. Sierra Space is set to launch their Dream Chaser Tenacity for their first mission to the international space station. While the shuttles have been retired their legacy lives on.
John Young and Robert Crippen were the first 2 member American crew since Gemini 12 in 1966, some 15 years earlier. John Young was the first astronaut to fly 6 missions and the first to fly on Gemini, Apollo and the Shuttle. He flew on the first Gemini flight in March 1965 (the first 2 member crew spaceflight, Gemini 10, Apollo 10, which orbited the Moon and made the fastest speed so far achieved by a crewed spaceflight, landing on the Moon in 1972 on Apollo 16, the first Shuttle flight and ST9, the first flight of the Spacelab crew module. He had been due to fly the Hubble Space Telescope deployment flight on Atlantis in August 1986, but the flight was postponed nearly 4 years due to the Challenger tragedy and by the time it did fly, on Discovery, he had been replaced and did not fly into space again. He died in January 2018. Pilot Robert Crippen made 4 flights, STS 1, STS 7, the first 5 member crew mission and the first US flight to have a woman on board, the late Sally Ride, STS 41C, the LDEF deployment flight and the first satellite repair mission, on Solar Max, and STS 41G, the first 7 member crew flight, the first to have 2 women astronauts, Sally Ride and Kathryn Sullivan, the first spacewalk by an American female astronaut, Kathryn Sullivan, the first Canadian astronaut Marc Garneau, and the 2nd and last shuttle flight to end back at the Kennedy Space Center. Robert Crippen was the first to make 4 shuttle flights, the first to command back to back flights of the same shuttle, Challenger and to musket 3 flights on one orbiter, Challenger. He had been due to command Discovery on the first flight out of Vandenberg AFB in California on the first polar orbiting crewed flight in 1986 but the Challenger tragedy meant no flights were ever launched from Vandenberg. He did manage to land back in Florida on his last flight, bad weather having forced 2 of his earlier flights to land in California.
As a rush fan, it was cool to hear the coms that were used in the song countdown which was about this launch. Rush were guests at the launch. I was in 1st grade when this happened and we watched launches at school on TV.
I remember when a reporter asked John Young how his heart rate remained low. He said, “you either understand the situation or you don’t. I understood the situation”!
I much appreciate that you’re presenting the original video without stretching it out to 16:9, and in general, keeping everything honest! Unfortunately, sometimes the filters you used to clean up the footage turned on and off, but hey, no biggie!
Very sobering foreshadowing when he talked about the debris coming off the external tank and hitting the shuttle Columbia. I wasn't born for Challenger. I was around for Columbia and watched in horror from Fort Worth as she disintegrated.
I was in my high school's marching band. We marched in a parade in honor of the Columbia's first mission. I was sickened by Columbia's break up over Texas in 2003.
I agree with other posters, this is very good. An enthusiastic, well done. Knowing what we know now, on her 28th flight, Columbia left Earth for the last time on Jan. 16, 2003. The STS program was a success, but it went on too long.
Nichelle was a legend, not only playing Uhura but also helping NASA and promoting space flight and science. She will always be treasured in our hearts forever ❤
I was in 8th grade in Tampa, FL when this happened. We were all let out of class to watch this and even on the other side of the peninsula, it was amazing to see!
You did an amazing job in putting this together. Born in 1978 in germany my first memory is sadly the challenger disaster which happened to be on my farthers birthday.
It's amazing to think that upon congressional approval in 1972, an entire program consisting of entirely new designs, including the solid rocket boosters, orbiters (commonly referred to as the shuttles), the orbiter's engines and the external tank was built and launched within 9 years. The Artemis moon program has been in development and build stage for almost 20 years, although it didn't officially become the Space Launch System (later renamed Artemis) until 2010, some of which morphed out of the Constellation project started in 2005.
They were not entirely new designs. The STS booster was based on the Titan IIIC. The Orbiter had been in design since 1965. The 'capsule splashdown' was a political response to the USSR quickie design to get a human into space. The Shuttle was always the plan. This Artemis thing makes manned spaceflight even more precarious.
"the orbiter's engines and the external tank was built and launched within 9 years" Coincidentally, that was the interval from first engine test to first flight of the Saturn V as well (8 yr 8 mo). Total development time was about 13 years.
@RideAcrossTheRiver actually, a capsule is far safer as it has a simpler and smaller heat shield, and a simpler re-entry. Also, most capsules have a launch escape system (unlike the shuttle)
I remember hearing on local Houston news at the time the shuttle was ordered to invert while flying over Kilauea Observatory. That let Ground evaluate the tile loss on Columbia's underneath.
Pretty comprehensive, covering US crewed spaceflight development from the end of Apollo in July 1975, to OV 101 (AKA 'Entrprise', after the Fedrations Starship of the same name (as well as that SF ship's Communications Officer, Nichele Nichols (Uhura), who, sadly, passed away 2 week-ends ago. Ms Nichols occupies a rather large portion of NASA'S history, which, hopefully, will make it onto the Big Screen as a sort of sequel to Hidden Figures.
It's really interesting to me how the ET was painted white for the first few STS missions and now the unpainted orange tank is the signature look of the shuttle.
Waited years for this new,amazing reusable space ship take off. A BBC tv programme first made me aware of the space shuttle in 1978 so by launch time many years had passed from its initial launch year anyway it didn’t stop me staying at home to watch take off. To get into the feel I even pushed back the sofa/couch so that I was literally looking into the ceiling😂😂I was 13 afterall
Its also kinda nuts seeing Columbia getting built in this very old-school documentary, knowing what would later happen in 2003 to that hardware. I wonder if those workers ever thought about that possiblity.
I was 12 when she went up and landed. Our teacher set up a tv in class so we could watch the landing. I will never forget how we all cheered when it set down. Even teachers arms were in the air. Watching this makes me cry. Happy memories.
I don't know If I can say there was ever a more miraculous space plane craft since the Space Shutte, that succefully went where this craft did & in the paths of any in its design, ever revealed in the publics eye. Up to the early 21st Century.
This was the first Shuttle flight, the first for Columbia, the first crewed flight in a reusable vehicle, the first flight of an untested vehicle with crew on board, the first to be boosted by solid propellants, the first flight by a crew member, John Young, on this 5th mission, the first American flight to end on land and in California.
John Young is the only astronaut to pilot: a Gemini capsule, An Apollo capsule, a lunar module, a lunar rover, and a space shuttle. Legend
And therefore the most experienced Astronaut in History.
The boosters are being used on the Orion moon rocket and the external tanks converted to the first stage
And the shuttle flight he went on was not a routine mission, being a test session, he was the test pilot for the shuttle to certify it for use.
Too bad he's passed. His experience could've been used for Space X. Boeing is, well, lacking.
She flew well. Rip Challenger and Columbia.
Rip to the crew who lost their lives on both shuttles.
Despite the crashes, she is amazing
It was the first ever space flight of a completely new space transport system, and with a crew on board at once. We must pay tribute to the courage of John Young and Robert Crippen who brilliantly performed the flight. Thanks for this video! I am especially pleased to remember this flight, because in 1995 John Young personally answered my letter. Russia, St. Petersburg.
That is really cool. The Space Shuttle is one of the Greatest achievements in the history of mankind... If our two countries had put as much effort into exploring space together as we have spent in fear of each other, we'd have bases on the moon, I'm sure. We'd be seeing amazing things... Human nature is unfortunate, sometimes.
@@SamM-gl9zc I completely agree with you.💯🤝
Hard to understate how bold this was. Even with the Saturn rockets, they live tested each component, then flew the whole thing unmanned a few times to shake out the problems. The shuttle was assembled and had to launch, orbit, go through the fiery RE-ENTRY, and land unpowered all for the first time.
From my point of view it wasn't bold - it was stupid and dangerous. The whole program was a death trap, beginning with the first flight that already was crewed, continuing with the "black zones" during a launch where a failure had been unsurvivable, continuing with the heat shield problems that never had been solved and finally with the problems with the solid rocket boosters.
NASA made some huge mistakes at that time and 14 people paid the ultimate price for these mistakes.
@@annando do you expect space travel to be all rainbows and sunshine? People are going to have to die in order for us to progress.
@kennethmiller1029 Well, where the Saturn V was Von Braun's vision, you could say STS was a truly American vision.
Hence explaining the... lets say weird, design choices.
Wow you guys are little bitches. Yes, it was a risky system with immense capability. I wouldn't have hesitated to ride into orbit in one, especially with the large throat SSMEs. The HPOTPs were tested so thoroughly they would fly with cracked blades because the crack propagation characteristics were so well understood (and this was in Block 1 engines at 104.5%). Furthermore, a few design trades like titanium airframe (higher heat pulse tolerance would've reduced heat shield requirements immensely), electric flight surfaces instead of hydrazine gas generator hydraulics, and an armored crew cabin with explosive separation capability would have ameliorated a lot of the programs safety issues. Unfortunately politics of the possible saw NASA twist arms to force the DoD into Shuttle as its KH-11 launcher which mean 60k lb payloads (right at the limit) directly into polar orbit with a ton of crossrange and keeping existing contrators in business (hypergolics vs gear-reduced servos) meant risk went up in a design that wasn't as fundamentally flawed as current fashionable revisionism.
@@annando Bet you are fun at parties
I watched this back then when I was 10 and immediately wanted one of those Revell plastic model kits of the Shuttle. Got one the week after. It is still on display in my office.
Yeah, I was 9 1/2 back then and I remember well I had a sleepover at my grandparents house. They wanted me to go to bed, but I knew this thing was landing at 10:30 local time approximately. So I convinced them I really wanted to see the first landing and I did.
I was given the same kit back in the early 80s. I don't have that model anymore, but my wife bought a recent edition of it for me a few years ago. It brought back memories of building it the first time.
I remember watching this mission on TV, I always loved the Columbia and was heart broken when she and her crew were lost. I remember the look in John Young's eyes, I cannot imagine how he must have felt. Thank you for posting this.
I was in kindergarten for the moon landing and a senior in high school for this. Both were huge memories in my life.
We watched this in the Netherlands live on TV, and I even recorded the sound from the TV speaker with a microphone on a tape recorder!
I was too young when the Saturn Vs were launched, and somehow always regretted missing that, so I definitely wanted to catch this momentous occasion.
After watching the Apollo splashdowns, the real game-changer for me was when Columbia's landing gear came out. I thought--Wow--it really is going to land like an airplane! 😀
My generations versions was watching Falcon Heavy Boosters come back and land vertically and in sync too.
@@ChuckyLarms I think that was even more amazing!
@@jpsned Like the cover of some 1950's sci-fi book.
@@marcmcreynolds2827 Exactly! 👍
Damn you commenters just made me feel old…what the hell is a falcon???
I'm so happy I was born in during the Space Shuttle Program. I got to witness space travel become a normal occurrence! And now that I'm fully grown, the internet is showing me all of the things I missed growing up. Wonderful time to be here!
I still remember how problematic those darn heat tiles were at first!
Awesome video. Can't help but play "Countdown" by Rush in my head at the same time. They used actual NASA audio for the song. Godspeed Columbia and Challenger, never forgotten.
Me too. It gives me goosebumps most everytime I listen to it
BTW they had a VIP invite from NASA and were there, thus the song was born.
I just love how John is running down the stairs after landing and is like “hold up, hold up! Lemme check on my aircraft!” A true pilot 😅
RIP John Young (along with the crews of the ill-fated STS-51-L & STS-107 misisons). He was one of 3 men who have been to the Moon twice (Apollos 10 & 16) along with Jim Lovell & the late great Eugene Cernan. I remember watching the launch on TV. It had been aborted to a computer glitch and the actual launch took place on the 20th anniversary of the first manned orbital spaceflight by Yuri Gagarin. Joe Engle ended up commanding STS-2.
Retro Space HD, thank you very much for such an amazing video. I love the Space Shuttle Program and especially the STS-1 mission with these brave men who, faced with the dangers of this inaugural flight, fulfilled their mission and made history. Long live John Young and Robert Crippen, the best crew for the first Shuttle flight into space. Hail Space Shuttle Columbia, thank you very much.
Congratulations 👍👨🚀

I never get tired of watching old space shuttle launches...thumbs up man!!
I was there. I was 15 at the time. My dad worked for Dreyden Flight Research center at Edwards. We had viewing much closer than the general public was allowed. We had been several hours early and we went on a walk around Edwards and my dad found an arrowhead that was later dated to more than 3000 years old. I still have that arrowhead today. My dad knew all of these test pilots and astronauts and I remember having boxes full of regalia that was given to my dad over the years the shuttle was being developed. It was great being part of a historical event.
I saw the landing on public viewing side at E.A.F.B.. The double sonic boom was always great to hear. 7 months later, again I got to see STS2 land on the eastern viewing side. However, it was from an ambulance because I got in a motorcycle wreck t-boning a p/u truck. I lived in the Antelope Valley at the time. Thanks for posting this.
I remember vividly ABC's Frank Reynolds being so excited he referred to the SRBs as 'Solid Bocket Roosters'!! 😝😝😝
I remember watching this live when I was in 3rd grade. We were glued to the TV. We were all too young to remember the moon landing, so to us, this was a really big deal. I was in 8th grade when we lost Challenger and was watching it at school too...as were many school kids due to the first teacher in space. The shuttle program is a part of my childhood. I'm very glad I got to take my daughter, when she was in 3rd grade, to see the very last shuttle to launch. We got to visit the launch pad with the shuttle on it. Being that close to it was amazing.
Similar vintage. I was in grade 9 when we lost Challenger, and took my kids to see the launch of STS131, but it got delayed and we missed it.
It was still cool to see the shuttle on the pad.
This is FANTASTIC!!! What a great compilation. Thank you for putting this together!
Has to be one of the bravest test flights of all time. So many moments of this flight, life was pretty much dependent on computer analysis, simulation, and predictions.
Not one of the bravest....The Bravest. First powered flight of an unproven vehicle of such a revolutionary design!!!
Not quite. They had dropped the orbiter off a 747 several times to test its glide characteristics so it wasn’t all analysis and simulation, at least not for the landing. I guess they could have flown it unmanned first, like the Russians did with their shuttle, but I guess the astronauts insisted. They didn’t want monkeys going first like on Mercury
Columbia was always my favorite shuttle and this an amazing tribute to her and the space shuttle program as a whole!
Columbia was my favorite too.
Mine as well. I was heartbroken when she and her crew were lost. I was thrilled to see Discovery at the Smithsonian, but I couldn’t help but think it should have been Columbia sitting there.
@@corneliuscrewe677 if she had, it would’ve been her. Discovery would’ve gone possibly to the Seattle Museum of Flight.
@@corneliuscrewe677Columbia was going to the Smithsonian. She was essentially promised to them before the accident
Thank you, Retro, for the look back. Remember it well, getting up early to watch it, (was 19 YO), though I don't recall ever seeing that shot of the external fuel tank drifting away after detaching. What a shot!
All the best.
This was excellent ! Really liked the narration by the Young and Crippen. Thank you for a great video !
It amazes me that so many people remember the two accidents but they forget all the things the shuttle accomplished and call the program a failure.
It was a failure.
@@StrokerAce3983 really, I will name one Hubble repair mission, no other vessel at the time could have done it
@@massmike11 Yes, but the cost of launching Shuttle was greater than the cost of Hubble. The open secret at the time was that it would have been faster and cheaper to launch a new Hubble-class telescope on an expendable rocket in place of each servicing mission.
@@NeilFraser and what launcher would you have used? Oh right it only fit on the shuttle.
@@massmike11 Hubble was based around the KH-11 class of spy satellite. 18 of them were launched on Titans and Deltas.
Awesome! 100% pure awesome! Great job…and a great service to history.
Great vid thank you. The only RCS test I had never seen was shuttle. This should be posted in the nasaspaceflight shuttle forums! You deserve the views.
Feel free to share it there!
@@RetroSpaceHD looks like someone beat me to it!
It was posted in there discord(where I found this video)
I knew a member of my flight club while I was in college who worked for NASA's "White Sands" (actually Las Cruces) test facility. In 1991, I was invited out to see a test of the nose RCS package in their facility that abuts the Organ Mountains...they fed the RCS rockets with mission data that was collected from earlier shuttle flights. It was really loud, even with hearing protection from a safe distance! I can only imagine how loud it was inside the crew compartment...I understand that a few very short RCS rocket burns would happen per hour on a typical mission, automatically fired by the computers as they compared collected telemerety to the flight plan ideal position. It's like a hammer, instant on and instant off. The test was around sunset, so seeing the flame plumes from the individual RCS thrusters was awesome 👌 Lots of safety precautions, though, as monomethyl hydrazine is used as the propellant.
13:29 - the SRB ignition was so violent that it permanently bend the rear body flap, which was used to help control orientation during descent - the crew were never told of this, and if they had - the pilot mentioned they would have bailed out after SRB burn and Columbia would have been lost then and there.
Congratulations. This is an excellent introduction to the Shuttle program, and overview of the first heroic flight. Hail Columbia!
Even in Japan, it was broadcast repeatedly despite several postponements.
I was a high school student at the time.
The few seconds from ignition to launch felt very long. And the TV screen continued to show it until the SSME vanished into a faint glow after dumping the SRBs.
Boy, that took me back to my school days. I recently read John Youngs book. Very interesting.
Took the most courage of any spaceflight. Untested vehicle (except for glide flights) where anything could have happened.
Second-most courage, anyway. Vladimir Kamarov was pretty sure he would die even before the ill-fated Soyuz 1 had left the ground. It simply wasn't ready to fly, but they flew it anyway and if he didn't go his friend Gagarin was the backup.
Simply amazing! This is your best video yet!
THAT was fantastic! Thank you. My dad was stationed at Tinker AFB in Midwest City, OK when we got to see the "piggy back" shuttle fly in for refueling. Awesome.
I cut out of school on 4/10/81 to watch the launch but was disappointed when the launch was scrubbed. On the 12th, I woke up early and was tuned to channel 7 watching Frank Reynolds, Gene Cernan and Jules Bergman describing the magnificent launch. I’ll never forget when Bergman stated, “American thunder in the skies.”
Wonderful video for a gorgeous ship. Thank you for the reminder of how cool these flights were.
I remember watching Columbia’s first flight on TV at school. I was in 2nd grade, and I remember being fascinated by it all. I also remember when we lost Columbia and Challenger. Both sad, heartbreaking events. 🙏🏻💔🕊️😢
It was a miracle this flight made it back in one piece. From the STS-1 wiki entry :
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Mission anomalies
STS-1 was the first orbital test flight of what NASA claims was, at the time, the most complex flying machine ever built. Roughly 70 anomalies were observed during and after the flight, owing to the many components and systems that could not otherwise be adequately tested. Notable anomalies included:
- Similar to the first Saturn V launch in 1967, engineers underestimated the amount of noise and vibration produced by the Space Shuttle. Shock waves from the SRB thrust were deflected up into the orbiter's tail section, which flexed the wing flaps and bent several fuel tank supports; Columbia could have had trouble landing if the flaps had been damaged. An improved sound suppression system was later installed in LC-39A to damp vibrations.
- Pilot Crippen reported that, throughout the first stage of the launch up to SRB separation, he saw "white stuff" coming off the External Tank and splattering the windows, which was probably the white paint covering the External Tank's thermal foam.
- The astronauts' on-orbit visual inspection showed significant damage to the thermal protection tiles on the OMS/RCS pods at the orbiter's aft end, and John Young reported that two tiles on the nose looked like someone had taken "big bites out of them". The U.S. Air Force also photographed the orbiter using a KH-11 KENNEN reconnaissance satellite. Due to the top secret nature of the satellite, only a small number of NASA personnel were aware of this, and they had arranged for the photography prior to the launch as a precaution to make sure no damage had been done to the thermal tiles on the underside of the orbiter, as there had never been a flight of a crewed spacecraft before where the heat shield was exposed to the vacuum of space for the entire duration of the mission. Young and Crippen were instructed to perform maneuvers with the RCS thrusters to align Columbia so that the KH-11 could photograph it, but were not informed of the reason for them. Aligning the shuttle's low Earth orbit with the KH-11's polar orbit was a somewhat tricky move, and launch on April 12 was scheduled for a few minutes after the launch window opened, due to the need to get the KH-11 into correct orientation for imaging the shuttle. Images obtained confirmed that damage to Columbia was not serious. Post-flight inspection of Columbia confirmed that approximately 16 undensified tiles near the OMS pod had been lost during ascent.
- Columbia's aerodynamics at high Mach numbers during reentry were found to differ significantly in some respects from those estimated in pre-flight testing. A misprediction of the location of the center of pressure (due to using an ideal gas model instead of a real gas model) caused the computer to have to extend the body flap by sixteen degrees rather than the expected eight or nine. Also, the first roll manoeuvre resulted in lateral and directional oscillations during which side slip angles of up to 4° were reached. This was twice as high as predicted. Analysis attributed the cause to unexpectedly large rolling moments due yaw RCS jet firings. During the early stages of entry, orbiter roll control is achieved as a result of sideslip modulation.
- The orbiter's heat shield was damaged when an overpressure wave from the solid rocket booster caused a forward Reaction control system (RCS) oxidizer strut to fail.
- The same overpressure wave also forced the orbiter body flap - an extension on the orbiter's underbelly that helps to control pitch during reentry - into an angle well beyond the point where cracking or rupture of its hydraulic system would have been expected. Such damage would have made a controlled descent impossible, with John Young later admitting that had the crew known about this, they would have flown the shuttle up to a safe altitude and ejected, causing Columbia to be lost on the first flight. Young had reservations about ejection as a safe abort mode due to the fact that the SRBs were firing throughout the ejection window, but he justified taking this risk because, in his view, an inoperative body flap would have made landing and descent "extremely difficult if not impossible."
- The strike plate next to the forward latch of Columbia's external tank door was melted and distorted due to excess heat exposure during reentry. This heat was attributed to an improperly installed tile adjacent to the plate.
- During remarks at a 2003 gathering, John Young stated that a protruding tile gap filler ducted hot gas into the right main landing gear well, which caused significant damage, including the buckling of the landing gear door. He said that neither he nor Crippen were told about this incident and he was not aware that it had happened until reading the postflight mission report for STS-1, also adding that the gas leak was noted in the report, but not the buckling of the landing door. (The buckling of the door is in fact in the anomaly report, anomaly STS-1-V-49).
Despite these problems, the STS-1 mission was completed successfully, and in most respects Columbia performed optimally. After some modifications to the Shuttle and to the launch and reentry procedures, Columbia flew the next four Shuttle missions.
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Well duh... thats why columbia had ejection seats during this run....
Annotations to a couple of the Wiki entries, from my personal experience:
* Ahead of the first flight, NASA was quite aware of the potential for acoustic damage. Statisticians Bendat & Persol were hired to analyze acoustic data from static tests of the solid and liquid motors, hoping to gain insight into how that might affect the tiles.
* Misjudgements as to orbiter aerodynamics had consequences beyond reentry kinematics: The wing structure was simply designed to the wrong loads. As the orbiter's program manager put it in 1985, "We're flying on strain gauges." Had the design payload weight been present in the payload bay during that first re-entry, the wings would have failed.
I was taken back in time with this video and more so with including Nichelle Nichols who recently passed away.
I was 14 years old in 1981, ever interested in the shuttle program, i remember
have seen the launch and landing in Mexican TV news, 26:50 see you mañana, the great Columbia!
Wow, don't make it look so old. I remember watching this live. Both the take-off and the landing, as well as the test glide off of the 747.
I remember watching the landing live at school in 6th grade. What a space craft!
Unfortunately I remember sitting in stunned silence in 6th grade after the class watched the challenger exploded . The hole school was doing a space week in anticipation of the live school room events. The teacher just turned 0ff the TV and told us to take out our math books
As an 80s kid the space shuttle was a wonder to me😊
I had a tear in my eye when i stood next to Atlantis at the visitors centre and took it all in. 😢
14:35, so retrospective of Columbia’s last flight. John Young was the perfect man to fly that first flight.
A bold, prophetic statement from Hutchinson, "...quite frankly we're not worried about any other tiles being loose...".
Thankyou for posting this, absolutely brilliant.
I remember this really clearly, it was an incredible moment, a reusable space plane that had so many 'new' design features the maiden flight. No little steps to make the big step. Just a very big brave step into the complete unknown. And as we learned this rocket and shuttle is a killer. Flying to space and re-entry to earth is never going to be a walk in the park. The SpaceX fans are going to get a reality check soon. It's only a matter of time.
IFT-1 was far from a reality check, and so far it is going about as well as a realistically fail-first Apollo alternative could be going.
Yeah just stopped could be miles ahead by now.And no money is crap,if it had a war purpose still be going
This is just excellent. Thank you for this!
14:21 I still get chills when they say "Go at throttle up". R.I.P Challenger crew.
First ting I thought when I watched this at that moment.
I know, despite my brain knowing that throttling up post maxQ had nothing to do with the oring failure those words still hit my heart at every launch
Edgelord
Rush wrote a song about the launch of Colombia. It is from the album "Signals" entitled "Countdown. Some of the actual audio is on the track.
I've heard it. Good song.
It is undeniable. This has got to be the greatest test flight in history.
Even in the 70s it looked like it was from the 80s! A perfect design. I remember watching this launch on TV in 1981.
I remember this day so well, it was very exciting. Some unintentional foreshadowing of the foam and heat shield issues (they never really got on top to of that) and you also see the beginnings of the shirt-sleeve myth, that the shuttle was really just an airplane that could go to space (it wasn't) and that all the refinements of a modern airliner would make using it a breeze. The reality was it was a hypersonic hazmat freight truck operating mostly within an envelope that was absolutely hostile to human survival, and prior to Challenger outcomes, no effective escape system. The Soviet Buran was an interesting project in this regard because they absolutely refused a solid-fuel booster system and had an atmospheric escape method but the thing was so expensive it was doomed to fail and only flew one unmanned mission.
That said I'm glad the STS existed and that all those engineers got to contribute so much.
Incredible editing on all your videos!
As of writting this later this year the spiritual successor to the shuttle is set to be launched. Sierra Space is set to launch their Dream Chaser Tenacity for their first mission to the international space station. While the shuttles have been retired their legacy lives on.
John Young and Robert Crippen were the first 2 member American crew since Gemini 12 in 1966, some 15 years earlier. John Young was the first astronaut to fly 6 missions and the first to fly on Gemini, Apollo and the Shuttle. He flew on the first Gemini flight in March 1965 (the first 2 member crew spaceflight, Gemini 10, Apollo 10, which orbited the Moon and made the fastest speed so far achieved by a crewed spaceflight, landing on the Moon in 1972 on Apollo 16, the first Shuttle flight and ST9, the first flight of the Spacelab crew module. He had been due to fly the Hubble Space Telescope deployment flight on Atlantis in August 1986, but the flight was postponed nearly 4 years due to the Challenger tragedy and by the time it did fly, on Discovery, he had been replaced and did not fly into space again. He died in January 2018.
Pilot Robert Crippen made 4 flights, STS 1, STS 7, the first 5 member crew mission and the first US flight to have a woman on board, the late Sally Ride, STS 41C, the LDEF deployment flight and the first satellite repair mission, on Solar Max, and STS 41G, the first 7 member crew flight, the first to have 2 women astronauts, Sally Ride and Kathryn Sullivan, the first spacewalk by an American female astronaut, Kathryn Sullivan, the first Canadian astronaut Marc Garneau, and the 2nd and last shuttle flight to end back at the Kennedy Space Center. Robert Crippen was the first to make 4 shuttle flights, the first to command back to back flights of the same shuttle, Challenger and to musket 3 flights on one orbiter, Challenger. He had been due to command Discovery on the first flight out of Vandenberg AFB in California on the first polar orbiting crewed flight in 1986 but the Challenger tragedy meant no flights were ever launched from Vandenberg. He did manage to land back in Florida on his last flight, bad weather having forced 2 of his earlier flights to land in California.
As a rush fan, it was cool to hear the coms that were used in the song countdown which was about this launch. Rush were guests at the launch. I was in 1st grade when this happened and we watched launches at school on TV.
"Quite frankly we're not worried about any other tiles being loose".
Yep.
I remember when a reporter asked John Young how his heart rate remained low. He said, “you either understand the situation or you don’t. I understood the situation”!
Very well done. Thanks for posting this!
The start of day 3 in the shuttle has phenomenal camera quality for 40+ years ago
I much appreciate that you’re presenting the original video without stretching it out to 16:9, and in general, keeping everything honest!
Unfortunately, sometimes the filters you used to clean up the footage turned on and off, but hey, no biggie!
Some sequences are assemble from diferent sources, that's' why you see difference in quality.
Very sobering foreshadowing when he talked about the debris coming off the external tank and hitting the shuttle Columbia. I wasn't born for Challenger. I was around for Columbia and watched in horror from Fort Worth as she disintegrated.
I was born in 1976 and lived in the desert in SoCal until 1980. We have pictures of the Enterprise test flights
I was in my high school's marching band. We marched in a parade in honor of the Columbia's first mission. I was sickened by Columbia's break up over Texas in 2003.
Good Documentary like a tv documentary thank you 🙏
John Young was such a badass.
I agree with other posters, this is very good. An enthusiastic, well done. Knowing what we know now, on her 28th flight, Columbia left Earth for the last time on Jan. 16, 2003. The STS program was a success, but it went on too long.
Just amazing! Thank you for this.
5:12 RIP Nichelle Nichols... 😥
Nichelle was a legend, not only playing Uhura but also helping NASA and promoting space flight and science. She will always be treasured in our hearts forever ❤
I was in 8th grade in Tampa, FL when this happened. We were all let out of class to watch this and even on the other side of the peninsula, it was amazing to see!
You had school on Sunday?
I know it well. I was actually employed for them at age 17 and supported it and many others.
Stunning work
Ouch-hearing how they were so dismissive of the tiles coming off is so sad in light of Columbia in 2003.
You did an amazing job in putting this together. Born in 1978 in germany my first memory is sadly the challenger disaster which happened to be on my farthers birthday.
It's amazing to think that upon congressional approval in 1972, an entire program consisting of entirely new designs, including the solid rocket boosters, orbiters (commonly referred to as the shuttles), the orbiter's engines and the external tank was built and launched within 9 years. The Artemis moon program has been in development and build stage for almost 20 years, although it didn't officially become the Space Launch System (later renamed Artemis) until 2010, some of which morphed out of the Constellation project started in 2005.
They were not entirely new designs. The STS booster was based on the Titan IIIC. The Orbiter had been in design since 1965. The 'capsule splashdown' was a political response to the USSR quickie design to get a human into space.
The Shuttle was always the plan. This Artemis thing makes manned spaceflight even more precarious.
"the orbiter's engines and the external tank was built and launched within 9 years" Coincidentally, that was the interval from first engine test to first flight of the Saturn V as well (8 yr 8 mo). Total development time was about 13 years.
@RideAcrossTheRiver actually, a capsule is far safer as it has a simpler and smaller heat shield, and a simpler re-entry. Also, most capsules have a launch escape system (unlike the shuttle)
The water was not to "keep things cool" it's to muffle the sound so the launch tower doesn't literally shake apart
Euphemism
Both.
I was there for the launch. Had VIP tickets for a front row seat
love that Nichelle Nicholls got to do that. Mustve been a hell of a lot of fun
There's a nice recruitment video with her, I'll post it one day!
RIP Nichelle
Hailing frequencies closed
I remember hearing on local Houston news at the time the shuttle was ordered to invert while flying over Kilauea Observatory. That let Ground evaluate the tile loss on Columbia's underneath.
My mother was so excellent I asked her if I could skip school that day so I could watch it live and she said no problem.
The launch? It was on a Sunday.
This is great footage, the best I've seen
If memory serves, the launch got scrubed shortly before the scheduled Friday window and was postponed until Sunday due to some technical issue.
You do remember correctly. Launch was originally scheduled for April 10, 1981.
Watched this live as it happened back in the day.
Love this so much Thank you for sharing it.
Amazing work. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for the video mate
Pretty comprehensive, covering US crewed spaceflight development from the end of Apollo in July 1975, to OV 101 (AKA 'Entrprise', after the Fedrations Starship of the same name (as well as that SF ship's Communications Officer, Nichele Nichols (Uhura), who, sadly, passed away 2 week-ends ago. Ms Nichols occupies a rather large portion of NASA'S history, which, hopefully, will make it onto the Big Screen as a sort of sequel to Hidden Figures.
It's really interesting to me how the ET was painted white for the first few STS missions and now the unpainted orange tank is the signature look of the shuttle.
600 lbs of paint is heavy...
Waited years for this new,amazing reusable space ship take off. A BBC tv programme first made me aware of the space shuttle in 1978 so by launch time many years had passed from its initial launch year anyway it didn’t stop me staying at home to watch take off. To get into the feel I even pushed back the sofa/couch so that I was literally looking into the ceiling😂😂I was 13 afterall
Amazing movie! Thanks
Outstanding documentary!
1. This is amazing!
2. This understates how much the Media freaked out b/c of the few tiles lost on the top of the fuselage 🤷♂️🙂
Its also kinda nuts seeing Columbia getting built in this very old-school documentary, knowing what would later happen in 2003 to that hardware. I wonder if those workers ever thought about that possiblity.
Another awesome vid
*HAIL COLUMBIA!*
Excellent work. Thanks.
I was 12 when she went up and landed. Our teacher set up a tv in class so we could watch the landing. I will never forget how we all cheered when it set down. Even teachers arms were in the air. Watching this makes me cry. Happy memories.
I was 20 when this baby launched. Never foresaw what would happen in 1986 and 2003.
The odds were with them everytime they launched but sometimes you get a bad roll statistically speaking. I was nine in 1980, best times.
I don't know If I can say there was ever a more miraculous space plane craft since the Space Shutte, that succefully went where this craft did & in the paths of any in its design, ever revealed in the publics eye. Up to the early 21st Century.
I Remember all this like Yesterday. I can HONESTLY say that MOST Americans were so PROUD of this Achievement.
This was the first Shuttle flight, the first for Columbia, the first crewed flight in a reusable vehicle, the first flight of an untested vehicle with crew on board, the first to be boosted by solid propellants, the first flight by a crew member, John Young, on this 5th mission, the first American flight to end on land and in California.