Wings in Space: Columbia Launches the Space Shuttle Era

The first space shuttle flight lifts-off on April 12, 1981. (NASA)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A new era of human spaceflight began in April 1981, as two NASA astronauts lifted-off aboard the first reusable winged spacecraft to set sail on the ocean of space.

Nothing is more associated with the 1980s as the space shuttle. In fact, Columbia's maiden launch was the first video ever played when MTV launched four months later.

Astronauts John W. Young and Robert L. Crippen served as the flight crew for the first space shuttle flight. Launched on April 12, 1981, the historic mission of shuttle Columbia allowed NASA to begin

Young was a veteran of two Gemini and two Apollo space missions, and Crippen was a rookie who had supported the Skylab missions. Each trained for nearly four years in preparation for this flight.

It was Young who was working the surface of the Moon in 1972 when NASA informed him that the space shuttle was approved for development. “The country needs that shuttle mighty bad,” Young replied.

John W Young recalled life from Georgia to Walking on the Moon

John Young gives a Navy salute during a Moon bounce in 1972. (NASA)

He was known as the astronaut's-astronaut.

A depression-era youth who grew up in northwest Georgia to become the seventh man to walk on the moon discussed his life in his recently released autobiography.

As a young boy attending school in Cartersville, located 40 miles north of Atlanta, John W. Young wrote about his meager life in the small town. And, how his strengths carried him on to college and into a flying career with the U.S. Navy and later upward to NASA.

Forever Young: A Life of Adventure in Air and Space is the book on the life of a true American hero, John Watts Young. Co-authored by James R. Hansen, Forever Young puts you on the flight deck and in the cockpit as Young prepares to push America forward in the space race and toward space research.

Young described his father's job at a Cartersville filling station as a temporary one after being laid off from a prominent job as a world traveling civil engineer during the height of the economic collapse.

Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex announces new summer highlights

Exploring space with new simulators and witnessing the thundering launch of a rocket are a few of this summer's highlights designed to educate and excite the public as NASA prepares for interplanetary travel, the Kennedy Space Center's Visitor Complex announced on Sunday.

Summer plans are in full swing as families look toward America's Space Coast for the excitement of the beaches, and the educational interest of the Kennedy Space Center. The next generation of space explorers are leaving their princess dresses and superhero outfits behind for flight suits and NASA caps to get an up close presence with the strong core STEM (Science, Technology, engineering and Math) values taught in school.

The warm space coast weather will give visitors chills of excitement as no less than eight major rocket launches are planned between June 1 and Labor Day weekend. The first rocket poised to lift-off is the massive Delta IV-Heavy on June 4 with a military payload on board. Space center visitors will be updated on launch times and given suggested locations to view each flight.

Tellus Museum to display space shuttle Columbia's nose cap

Shuttle Columbia's nose cap prepares for it's display near Atlanta. (Atkeison)

ATLANTA -- The nose cap of America's first space shuttle will go on public display next week at the Tellus Science Museum in Cartersville.

The gray nose section was flown as part of Columbia during eleven of her twenty-eight missions, and was removed only a few years before her ill-fated 2003 flight which saw the spacecraft break apart during atmospheric re-entry.

The four-foot wide oval nose cap will become the only reflown section of Columbia to be placed on public display.

"It's pretty even grey in color except it does have some black scorch marks on the top of the nose cap as evidence of its re-entry," Tellus Museum's Curator Julian Gray said on Monday during a behind-the-scenes visit of the space flown artifact.

"We are working on the graphics and the base is already made for it as we put it behind acrylic because we want to protect it," Gray added as he peered over the turtle shell-like nose.

The nose cap's light green bulkhead assembly which was attached to the shuttle body is also included in the display.

The NASA Historical Artifacts Program donated Columbia's nose to Tellus, and the museum plans to have it on display in it's expanding space flight section on March 14.

"To have such an important piece of Columbia from her flying days on display is a fitting tribute to this vehicle and all the men and women who worked on her during her illustrious career," said Dr. Don Thomas, a four time shuttle astronaut and author of the new book Orbit of Discovery.

Manufactured by the Vought Corporation in Dallas, the nose cap was installed on Columbia in 1984 during her 18-month long maintenance period in Palmdale, California.

The specially flown nose was part of a NASA experiment known as Shuttle Entry Air Data System (SEADS), and was based out of Langley Research Center. SEADS looked at the air pressure surrounding a space shuttle's nose section from an altitude of 300,000 feet through touchdown.

Fourteen sensor holes in the reinforced carbon carbon coated nose cap lined up in a cross and recorded measurements of Columbia as she plunged through the earth's atmosphere. The NASA experiment was activated minutes prior to the shuttle's deorbit burn.

During reentry, the orbiter's nose reached temperatures of near 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit.

Columbia first flew with her scientific nose in January 1986 during mission STS-61C. Eleven flights later, it was used for the final time during STS-65 in July 1994.

In fact, the 61C mission emblem design was based in part on the SEADS experiment. "It may be the only shuttle patch based on aerodynamics," Columbia's pilot Charles Bolden stated in 2011.

 Thomas, a member of Columbia's crew on that 1994 flight, says he looks forward to visiting Tellus soon to view the display.

"As the first shuttle to fly, and the first on which I rode to space, Columbia will be remembered for all the incredible missions she and her crews successfully accomplished," Thomas stated to this aerospace reporter on Monday.

In all, the displayed shuttle nose section traveled 48.4 million miles through space during it's combined 117 days in earth orbit.

The shuttle program came to an end in 2011, and Columbia's sister ships Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour were placed on public display at museums across the United States.

For many space flight insiders, the artifact will serve as a tribute to her memory.

Columbia, in one small way, has a found a home in a museum.


(Charles Atkeison reports on aerospace, science and technology. Follow his updates via Twitter @AbsolutSpaceGuy.)

SpaceLaunch News: July 1999 Issue

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Click the image to read my three space flight features.

My stories on the NASA FUSE satellite launch; the first U.S. female spacecraft commander, Eileen Collins; and the passing of Apollo 12 monwalker Charles Conrad in July 1999.

WAMT-AM STS-78 Space Shuttle Columbia LIVE Launch Coverage

TITUSVILLE, Fla. -- Space Shuttle Columbia STS-78 Live Launch Coverage on WAMT 1060 AM Titusville, Fla. by Charles Tyler Atkeison and Ray Smyth. Includes NASA launch audio.

SLN: Up to the Minute Notes & SRB Recovery June 1996

Click on each image to read my stories from the June 1996 SpaceLaunch News issue covering the mission of shuttle Columbia on STS-78.

KSC: Up to the Minute WAMT Titusville 03.08.96

WAMT 1060 AM program "KSC: Up to the Minute" with Charles Tyler Atkeison live radio report from Cape Canaveral on March 8, 1996.

KSC: Up to the Minute WAMT-AM Radio update

WAMT-AM on the Space Coast KSC: Up to the Minute six minute report on both the NASA NEAR spacecraft launch and the countdown for space shuttle Columbia's STS-75 launch.