Hail Columbia! 25 years ago today

[banquo's_bumble_puppy]

Hard to believe that it's been 25 years since the first shuttle flight. I can remember watching it on the t.v. and all of the excitement surrounding the launch....the newsman with...."go baby go....fly like an eagle".... what a wonderful memory

[banquo's_bumble_puppy]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/09/AR2006040900373.html

[ngc3314]

Wow - 25 years... I remember watching the launch while observing at Lick Observatory, flipping the TV momentarily from "camera" to "antenna" input. Then later that day the San Jose L-5 Society chapter let it be known that they had some passes to get on base at Edwards. A couple of us drove up from Santa Cruz to join the caravan, promptly got separated from them, and arrived at Edwards about 3 a.m. There were so many people streaming in that the guards had given up checking passes anyway; just us and about 400,000 close friends. Back up a couple of hours later to get a good spot along the fence. None of us spotted the returning shuttle before the double sonic boom, after which there were scattered shouts of "There it is!" "Where? Where?" Got a few pictures through a nice long lens, put up for the occasion here (http://www.astr.ua.edu/keel/space) (after replacing the power supply on that server yesterday).

It was worth the 4-hour backup to get off base and head home, relieved by the motor home owners who swapped a cold pitcher of lemonade for letting them pull in front. Called my parents in Tennessee from a pay phone along the way; Mom said they wondered whether I had been there, and asked whether I'd been in tears. I plead the Fifth.

[Swift]

CNN.com story (http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/04/12/shuttle.anniversary/index.html), talking with John Young and Robert Crippen, the two astronauts from STS-1. There is also a little shuttle history quiz (link on that page) - I got 5 out of 7.

I too remember watching both the launch and the landing on TV. IIRC, the lanuch was early in the morning - I lived in graduate student housing at the time and only a handful of us got up that early to watch. Even though I knew it was coming, I remember being awed by the roll just after they clear the tower.

The landing was around lunch time and I rushed back from the lab to watch. There was a huge crowd watching and a cheer went up when the camera spotted the little dot of the returning shuttle.

[Argos]

I still got that week´s Time magazine as a cherished memento. For me it was as thrilling as the Apollo 11 flight. We were so young...

[banquo's_bumble_puppy]

I got 6 out of 7

[WHarris]

7 out of 7.

[Duane]

7 of 7 :)

[Nicolas]

5 out of 7. I'm not a names person :D.

The sound clip of the first untethered spacewalk, I thought that was from the second moon landing?

"it might have been a small step for Neill, but it's a heck of a leap for me"

[ToSeek]

6/7. If I'd read the questions more carefully, it would have been 7/7.

[ToSeek]

5 out of 7. I'm not a names person :D.

The sound clip of the first untethered spacewalk, I thought that was from the second moon landing?

"it might have been a small step for Neill, but it's a heck of a leap for me"

He's parodying Conrad, who said "but it's a long one for me."

[Nicolas]

ok thanks :)

[Arneb]

5/7. I got the first untethered spacewalk wrong and mistook Ronald Reagan for Carl Sagan (duuh :wall: ). Reagan's rusty, old-cowboy-in-a-rocking -chair style doesn't get across in this notebook's puny speakers, apparently.

[novaderrik]

i remember watching that first launch- i was 6 years old, and it was the coolest thing in the world to me.. i had no concept of what came before in the space program- or even what space was- but at the time, it was the mostest awesomest thing in the world.
and i still think the shuttle is about the coolest thing we built as a country, and it's too bad we never really utilized to it's full potential.

[gwiz]

5/7. I got the first untethered spacewalk wrong and mistook Ronald Reagan for Carl Sagan (duuh :wall: ). Reagan's rusty, old-cowboy-in-a-rocking -chair style doesn't get across in this notebook's puny speakers, apparently.
Thanks to that hint, I got 7/7 on a machine with no sound.