Historic rocket science
NASA STS-1, April 12, 1981
In 1981, I woke up in the middle of the night to watch the launch of the first space shuttle.
And then they scrubbed the mission.
Had to wake up a second night to see the actual launch (above). I recorded the whole thing on a cassette tape (my first VCR was still a year away). Frank Reynolds of ABC did the blow by blow. It was the Columbia. Got the mission patch when visiting NASA in Mountain View. Star Wars-like lettering for the name (below).
We all thought the shuttle launch would look like what they did in Moonraker (1979). It was a bit different.
Tonight, I just finished watching the launch of Endeavour (below). This is the last year of shuttles for NASA. More stuff on NASA TV here.
NASA STS-130, February 8, 2010
Thx to Shandi Pierzina for telling me about tonite’s launch
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