30 Years Ago Today Space Shuttle Flights Began
30 years ago today Columbia and its crew of NASA astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen blasted off to begin three decades of shuttle missions with a first test flight that has been called the boldest ever. Columbia left earth at 7.00am on 12th April, 1981, to venture into space on a shake down mission and returned two days later.
NASA plans to announce retirement homes for Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour on the 30th anniversary of the first launch and we’ll have news of that late today.
After the fleet’s retirement, European and Japanese cargo ships will provide the International Space Station with supplies, but ISS crewmembers will have to fly there on Russian Soyuz capsules.
Over the decades, the reusable orbiters and their crews have deployed satellites, observatories and planetary probes. They delivered and repaired the Hubble Space Telescope, as well as crucial elements of the ISS. The shuttles united the rival Soviet and United States space programs in the years of construction of the ISS and after it was built.
