Thirty-four
years ago, today, at dawn, Columbia roared into orbit, heralding the
dawn of a new era in U.S. space exploration. Photo Credit: NASA, via
Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de
It would also mark the first occasion in the history of the U.S. space program that a crew had been aboard for the inaugural voyage of a new spacecraft; the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo spacecraft had all flown unmanned, before their systems were trusted with human pilots. Within the ranks of the astronaut corps, opinions were mixed. Fred Haise saw an unmanned first flight as trickier than a manned one. “It would have been very difficult,” he told the NASA oral historian, “to have devised a scheme to have flown unmanned. I guess you could’ve used a link and really had a pilot on a stick on the ground … but to totally mechanically program it to do that—and inherent within the vehicle—would have been very difficult. With a crew on-board, able to handle the multitude of things that you could work around, inherently made the success potential of a flight much greater.”
Others were more sceptical. “I didn’t see any need in risking humans and I didn’t think humans would be as proficient as automated equipment,” recalled Henry Pohl, then-head of engineering and development, in a NASA oral history. “By that time [the late 1970s], we had the know-how and we could build robots or the automated equipment that can detect things long before a human can detect it and I thought the vehicle was going to be so difficult to land that we really ought to land it with automated equipment.”
In
March 1978, a “pool” of crew members were announced for the first four
Orbital Flight Tests (OFTs) of the shuttle. At their initial press
conference (from left) are Gordon Fullerton, Vance Brand, Jack Lousma,
Fred Haise, Richard Truly, Joe Engle, Robert Crippen, and John Young.
Photo Credit: NASA.
On 29 December 1980, Columbia—attached to her External Tank (ET) and twin Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs)—rolled out from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to the pad for final processing operations. In late February, her cluster of three main engines were successfully test-fired for 20 seconds, and liftoff was provisionally scheduled for no earlier than 17 March 1981. However, numerous technical obstacles and a human tragedy conspired to push the STS-1 mission into April. Firstly, technicians needed to repair a section of debonded insulation on the ET, which pushed the launch to 5 April, after which a strike by Boeing machinists enforced a further delay to 10 April. Several technicians were left unconscious by a dangerous accumulation of nitrogen gas, whilst working in the shuttle’s aft compartment, leading to the tragic deaths of John Bjomstad and Forrest Cole.
T-0 on 10 April was timed to occur at the opening of a 6.5-hour “window,” which opened at 6:50 a.m. EDT and whose parameters were dictated by the requirement for adequate lighting to satisfactorily photograph Columbia’s ascent and preserve the option for a daylight landing opportunity at White Sands Missile Range, near Alamagordo, N.M., should a launch abort require Young and Crippen to perform an emergency landing after one orbit.
Shortly before 4 a.m. EDT on 10 April, the two astronauts boarded Columbia for what turned out to be a relatively uneventful countdown, until its final stages. Then, at T-9 minutes, during the final programmed hold in the countdown, a problem cropped up in one of the shuttle’s General Purpose Computers (GPCs). It was described by NASA as “a timing skew”; in effect, the backup flight software was unable to synchronize itself with the primary set. Unlike earlier manned spacecraft, the shuttle was totally reliant upon its computers to run the main engines, move the elevons, control its heading, and operate the Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS). The units were so critical that five GPCs were carried: four primaries, which ran the same software and “voted” before issuing commands, and a backup. If one of the primaries disagreed with the others, it was “outvoted” and considered faulty. The backup computer contained a different set of flight software, so that if all four primaries became corrupted, it could take over.
Resplendent
in the glow of floodlights, Columbia stands ready on Pad 39A, mounted
on her External Tank (ET) and twin Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs). Photo
Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de
After spending the 11th maintaining their proficiency, the astronauts headed into the suiting-up room in the small hours of the 12th, to be greeted by the result of the suit techs’ humor. “John Young made a big deal about the size of the American flag on his suit,” recalled technician Jean Alexander in a NASA oral history. “It came in with kind of a small version and they got several sizes before he was satisfied and it was kind of a joke, so on launch morning there was a motel that we stayed at Cocoa Beach and they had this huge flag on a pole [outside] a real-estate office next door. One of the suit techs that was down there for launch talked the real-estate people into letting him take that flag down and he took it to the suit room for suit-up morning and had it actually cover one whole wall! When John walked in, he said ‘John, is that big enough?’” The episode lightened the mood sufficiently for what was about to come.
Unlike their previous attempt, the countdown on 12 April 1981—which also happened to be the 20th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s pioneering orbital flight—proved charmed, which came as a pleasant surprise to Crippen. As the clock paused at T-9 minutes, Launch Director George Page told the men that he would extend the “hold” slightly, to ensure that the team were sufficiently calm and focused for the events ahead. “It was for a few minutes,” Crippen noted, “to get relaxed.” At T-5 minutes, Crippen started the shuttle’s Auxiliary Power Units (APUs) and verified their nominal performance.
Commander
John Young leads Pilot Bob Crippen out of the Operations & Checkout
(O&C) Building for the first shuttle mission. Both men are clad in
U.S. Air Force high-altitude pressure suits, which were worn by the
first four shuttle crews. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim
Becker/SpaceFacts.de
Six seconds before 7 a.m. EDT on 12 April 1981, anything slumbering on the Space Coast was slumbering no more, as the rumble of Columbia’s engines intensified into a mighty crescendo. Almost as quickly as it had appeared, the orange sheet of flame was gone, to be replaced by a trio of dancing Mach diamonds, as supersonic exhaust gases surged from the engine bells. A vast cloud of smoke quickly obscured the entire vehicle. The commentator’s next few words were drowned out by the ear-splitting staccato crackle and brilliant fireshow of the SRBs, which ignited precisely at T-zero, and precisely on the hour. From the press site, Columbia seemed to punch its way upwards from the smoke, accompanied by the shouts, whoops, and cheers of 3,500 spectators and hundreds of thousands more who were watching on television. “We have liftoff of America’s first Space Shuttle … and the shuttle has cleared the tower … ”
From their seats, Young and Crippen later recalled that Columbia rocked, perceptibly, backwards and forward, accompanied by a sharp increase of noise inside the cabin. Crippen would remark that, although the roar of the main engines definitely got their attention, it was the punch-in-the-back ignition of the SRBs which convinced and assured them that they were really going somewhere. For the first few seconds, as they cleared the tower and soared into the clear Florida sky atop two dazzling columns of flame, the cockpit instruments were blurred by the vibrations, though not unreadable. By the time that the shuttle rolled over onto her back, 10 seconds into the flight, and established herself on the correct heading for a 40.3-degree-inclination orbit, the two men reported that the vibrations had lessened to a point that allowed them to read their instruments without problems.
“Roll Program!” radioed Young as Columbia performed an axial rotation to orient itself onto the proper flight azimuth, seemingly “rolling” onto its back.
“Roger, Roll,” replied Capcom Dan Brandenstein.
The
world’s first reusable, piloted orbital spacecraft begins its maiden
voyage on 12 April 1981. Unlike other spacecraft, it flew for the first
time with a human crew aboard. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim
Becker/SpaceFacts.de
Climbing through the low atmosphere, the wind noise outside gradually intensified into something which could only be likened to a screaming. A minute into the flight, as Columbia approached an altitude of 9.3 miles (15 km), she passed through a period of maximum aerodynamic turbulence, which required the GPCs to throttle the engines back to just under two-thirds of their rated thrust. The passage through this period, nicknamed “Max Q,” was accompanied by an increase in the noise and vibration of the engines, although their performance remained within structural expectations. Shortly thereafter, the three engines were throttled back up to full power.
“Columbia, you’re Go at throttle up,” radioed Brandenstein.
“Roger, Go at throttle up,” acknowledged Young.
The sound from the boosters, meanwhile, remained sporadic and decreased to virtually nothing as the time approached, 132 seconds into the ascent, for their separation. Shortly before the SRBs burned out, Brandenstein, told the crew that they were now “negative seats,” meaning that Columbia was too high to use the ejection seats. Fortunately, the vehicle was performing beautifully. In his 2006 autobiography, Riding Rockets, Mike Mullane recalled listening with relief as each abort-boundary call was passed up by Brandenstein; each call signalled “the sweet song of nominal flight.”
The
STS-1 patch, highlighting the objectives of the mission, the name of
the first orbiter and the surnames of the first crew. Image Credit:
NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de
“What a view! What a view!” radioed Crippen, jubilantly.
“Glad you’re enjoying it,” replied Brandenstein.
Young and Crippen flew on for six more minutes after SRB separation, reaching Mach 19, at which point the engines were throttled back to maintain around three times the force of terrestrial gravity in order not to over-stress the vehicle. Throughout the entire ascent, the commander’s heart rate rose no higher than 90 beats per minute, whereas that of rookie Crippen peaked at nearly 130. The first flight of a fleet of shuttles which would revolutionize U.S. exploration of the heavens had begun, and a 30-year chapter in the history books had begun. After STS-1, Young would quip that he was so old that his heart would not beat any faster. However, Flight Director Neil Hutchinson had another explanation: the calm, cool Young must have been asleep the whole time!