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| 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.
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