For spectators on the ground, more attuned to the serene approaches of commercial jets, the shuttle’s precipitous descent and phenomenal speed caused hearts to pound. Barreling through the sky at an angle some seven times steeper than that of an airliner — and at almost twice the speed — Young pulled back on the stick, morphing the craft from a falling brick into a flying machine of exquisite grace.
At 10:20 A.M. PDT, Columbia touched down at 212 mph (341 km/h), its wheels kicking up a rooster tail of hard-packed sand. As the shuttle came to a halt following a 1.9-mile (3 km) rollout, Young’s characteristic drawl came over the radio: “Do I have to take it to the hangar, Joe?” he asked mission control’s Joe Allen, serving as Entry Capsule Communicator, or CapCom.
Allen chuckled before answering, “We’re gonna dust it off first.”
Stuttering steps
Despite its triumphs, STS-1 was not a perfect success. For example, struts that held Columbia to its fuel tank buckled at liftoff, forcing NASA to strengthen them for future flights. Additionally, several of the shuttle’s thermal tiles suffered damage during ascent and required replacement once back on the ground. (A similar problem doomed Columbia in 2003 when, during launch, a piece of foam fell from the external tank and struck the left wing, damaging the thermal protection system to the point of failure during reentry.)
But in April 1981, few foresaw that both Columbia and Challenger would vanish in dreadful tragedies, taking 14 lives. Instead, NASA hoped its planned fleet of at least four reusable shuttles — Atlantis, Challenger, Discovery, and Columbia — would launch weekly with crews of up to seven, allowing more rapid access to space than ever before.
Few also imagined that shuttles would go on to visit Russia’s Mir space station or the ISS after it. And no one dreamed that returning humans to the Moon would use the giant Space Launch System, whose core stage, engines, and boosters draw their design heritage directly from the shuttle.
The last shuttle mission, STS-135, landed July 21, 2011. And though the Space Shuttle Program never quite fulfilled its promise of rapid and routine access to space, it remains an iconic symbol of American high technology.