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See the original image at apod.nasa.gov

First Shuttle Launch [PIC]

apod.nasa.gov — On April 12, 1981, twenty years ago today, the Space Shuttle Columbia became the first shuttle to orbit the Earth. In this gorgeous time exposure, flood lights play on the Columbia and service structures (left) as it rests atop Complex 39's Pad A at Kennedy Space Center in preparation for first launch. Flown by Commander John W. Young.

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  • supernova17, on 03/11/2008, -3/+13Great find.
  • MagnumVP, on 03/11/2008, -1/+26That is a FANTASTIC Pic. You couldn't tell if that picture was from 1981 or last week. I hope they make some changes and produce something as revolutionary as the shuttle was in 1981. We need to get back up there more often to discover something new.
    • listrophy, on 03/11/2008, -0/+15Actually, the white ET kinda gives it away.
      • RogerStrong, on 03/11/2008, -0/+6Yup. I think only the first two launches had white tanks.
      • emalen, on 03/11/2008, -0/+9Ok, I just spent 5 minutes trying to find E.T. in that picture. Then, I was like, wait, E.T. came out in 1982. Then I read RogerStrong's comment. Now I feel a little silly.
        • Fergy, on 03/12/2008, -1/+1You shouldn't. listrophy was stupid for using ET in a place where you could know that 99,999999% of the people will misunderstand what you were trying to tell.
    • mrlost117, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1I dunno, somethin about that launch tower scream 80's oil rig to me. I think its the green hue.

      nonetheless, saved.
      • Exhumist, on 03/11/2008, -0/+2The Shuttle is scheduled to retire in 2010 and a new craft is taking over... and I don't know how revolutionary it is... Kinda resembles the Apollo rockets, but they are the rocket scientists, so I'm expecting great things!:
        here's an image of the new rocket:
        http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagegallery/i ...
      • kacymartin, on 03/12/2008, -1/+2Those launchpads (39A and 39B) actually used to launch the Saturn V vehicles from the Apollo missions in the 60s and 70s
        I don't think its the same tower though.
        • wsuBobby, on 03/13/2008, -2/+1Quit acting like you know *****. You're not an astronaut - you work for NASA? Shut your damn mouth.
    • Harbinger67, on 03/11/2008, -2/+6"You couldn't tell if that picture was from 1981 or last week."

      Probably because NASA's funding is so crappy that they are essentially doing the same thing as in 1981 as far as the shuttle goes.
    • webdeshel, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1I think some company should introduce "Moon Tourism". I'd pay...
  • wicketr, on 03/11/2008, -11/+5If only HDR was available back then. This picture would be AMAZING HDR!
  • DaviDTC, on 03/11/2008, -4/+52My computer date is off by a lot. Anyone know how to fix it?
    • Hobbes24, on 03/11/2008, -0/+6wrap the tower in heat insulating foam, that should do the trick
  • sovietamerica, on 03/11/2008, -42/+1nasa pics = buried.
  • deaftly, on 03/11/2008, -20/+3Buried. This is old news.
  • GibitStylin, on 03/11/2008, -2/+2i wonder how much power it takes to run those massive lights, cool shot.
    • spyrochaete, on 03/11/2008, -0/+2It's a time exposure picture meaning the lens was kept open longer, allowing more light. I'm sure the flood lights are incredibly powerful but not quite as much as this picture makes them appear.
  • Adrnshw6, on 03/11/2008, -2/+49"April 12, 1981, twenty years ago today"
    ... really?
    • NiX0n, on 03/11/2008, -6/+3No, twenty years ago from when the picture was posted, "2001 April 12"

      Buried. Old news
    • Harbinger67, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1It's from APOD, is it EVER news?

      "NEWSFLASH: Daily picture website UPDATED!!!"
  • Kale27, on 03/11/2008, -1/+8My hat goes off to our Astronauts. Takes a brave person to go into space let alone being the first to try out a new spacecraft.
    • sovietamerica, on 03/11/2008, -7/+2No, it takes a brave person to go into space for the first time in history.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Gagarin
      • RogerStrong, on 03/11/2008, -1/+5So one rules out the other?

        In any case, his wasn't the first flight of a Vostok spacecraft, or it's launcher. Columbia's 1981 mission was the first flight of both.

        • sovietamerica, on 03/12/2008, -4/+1who cares? first man in space > all.

          gg
  • catachip, on 03/11/2008, -1/+33The external fuel tank here is white in this picture, while now it's a rust color. It's an interesting story how that happened. Initially, they used to pain the tank white. It was actually a question to a NASA engineer from a summer intern student that got them to change it. The student asked why they painted it white. The engineer had no good reason, other than aesthetics. So, they just started to leave it as the bare material. They saved a ton of weight from not painting it too. I hope that intern got a job!
    • meteors, on 03/11/2008, -0/+7I actually think it looks better now.
    • Otto, on 03/11/2008, -0/+7I wouldn't call 600 pounds of weight a "ton", but it was a fair amount that they saved by not painting it. The lighter weight ETs later saved another 17000 pounds though, so it's sort of a drop in the bucket there.

      The "rust" color is the color of the spray on insulation foam.

      Source: http://www.msfc.nasa.gov/news/news/releases/1999/9 ...
    • Hobbes24, on 03/11/2008, -0/+14"because get me some ***** coffee, that's why!"
    • dvdave, on 03/11/2008, -4/+3But would that paint have kept the foam intact that eventually came off and destroyed Columbia upon re-entry?
      • justanotherday, on 03/12/2008, -0/+2No. In fact, aside from the weight savings (minimal) one of the reasons they left the paint off after STS-2 was that they discovered it was just flaking off during ascent anyway.

        The foam that doomed Columbia was frozen solid and came off in a chunk from around the orbiter mount. Paint wasn't going to stop that from happening.
    • spyrochaete, on 03/11/2008, -0/+3Wouldn't white paint reflect the sun and keep the fuel cooler? Wouldn't warm fuel become excited and cause greater pressure?
      • JEAH, on 03/12/2008, -0/+1The answer is either 'no' or 'yes, but it doesn't matter'
      • catachip, on 03/12/2008, -0/+1They already have to keep the liquid oxygen below -180 degrees Celcius and the liquid hydrogen at -250 C, so, I think that a few extra degrees of heating from the sun isn't really going to affect things that much. They don't top up the fuel until they absolutely have to, anyway.
  • searcade, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1Looks like it grew...
  • exomni, on 03/11/2008, -3/+4And now, 20 years later, our space shuttles and launching pads are still fundamentally the same. Honestly, you couldn't look at that pic, and a pic of a shuttle launching today, and tell me which one was newer.

    Good initial design? Or complete lack of progress?
    • UtopiaInTheSky, on 03/11/2008, -1/+2They're probably scared to change things.
    • meteors, on 03/11/2008, -0/+5Actually, you can. As another digger pointed out, the external tank is unpainted and orange today.
    • RogerStrong, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1More like lack of a budget from Congress to change it.

      And when an opportunity came - the competition that chose VentureStar as the prototype for a low-cost replacement - the winner was a company that made money off a near-monopoly selling high-cost launches to government . It had everything to lose and little to gain from a low-cost replacement.
    • Otto, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1Meh. There's not a lot they can really change about the basic design. They have had many changes that saved weight, the internal systems are more advanced, etc, but the thing is that you basically are just sticking a rocket at the ground and blasting. It's not amenable to a lot of extreme variation. Look at the various soviet space systems. Different shapes and such, but same basic design. Some problems have obvious solutions.
    • Hodor, on 03/11/2008, -1/+1or 3) Cold war "won", no further reason to sink billions and billions into the space program?
    • EternalIllusion, on 03/12/2008, -0/+1Yeah, why don't we spend billions and billions on the current war instead .. sigh.
  • Powermac, on 03/11/2008, -7/+2What's interesting to note is that the main huge fuel tank is white. For the first launch, they painted it white - but after realizing how much goddamn paint was used and how much weight it added, they now don't paint it (and it's that rust-orange color).

    How do I know this?

    My dad briefly worked for Lockheed, and had contacts at NASA.
    • Otto, on 03/11/2008, -1/+6Or you looked it up on the internet: http://www.msfc.nasa.gov/news/news/releases/1999/9 ...

      Either way.
    • bigdoof, on 03/11/2008, -0/+2It is interesting to note that the windows used throughout are transparent. When they were testing the prototype, they noticed that if they painted over the windows, they could not see through them. In future iterations, windows were left transparent such that the astronauts could see out of their vessel.

      How do I know this?

      My dad briefly worked for Boeing, and had contacts as well.
  • creep303, on 03/11/2008, -0/+2Fail for the copypasta of the description.
    • sTiVo, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1fail for the use of "copypasta"...although it sounds delicious.
  • MiraiLindemann, on 03/11/2008, -1/+0Is not 12th yet, anyway, this picture thrills me a lot, so meaningful ---I also dare to call it emotive---, I always try to imagine how it feels being there waiting for the launch, the count back... gosh, it has to be amazing!!
  • SSCrow, on 03/11/2008, -1/+1Nasa has cool pic of the days.
    But do we need to make a new Digg Submission for each every day?
    Its more consistent than Zero Punc submissions.
  • ratbastid, on 03/11/2008, -0/+0I wonder what day and year the submitter thinks it is...
  • heartcoldfusion, on 03/11/2008, -0/+3Did anyone watch the shuttle launch this morning? It was too cloudy to see it for more than a few seconds from where I live in Orlando.

    It's sad: That shuttle, Columbia is no longer with us, it's crazy that it's been five years.
  • Erythroxylum, on 03/11/2008, -1/+1I'll be sad to see it retired. They've done America proud. The next launch vehicle, the Orion, looks more like something from the Apollo era (i.e. a step backwards), but then I guess that's exactly what they need for going back to the moon.
    • 1gunners4, on 03/11/2008, -0/+2It's not a step backwards, the Orbiters were a step forward in the wrong direction; their design is simply too limiting. A more symmetrical shape can withstand far more than anything with wings could, and the safety of the new Orion will dwarf anything that the shuttles ever could put out.
    • CaptMonkey, on 03/11/2008, -0/+4Orion is in no way a step backwards. The shuttle sacrificed a lot all for the sake of having a semi-reusable spacecraft. (how many shuttle moon missons were there... oh, right... none.) Orion is the step we probably should have taken after Apollo, maybe we would be close to landing on Mars by now had we realized that in the 1970s.
    • Erythroxylum, on 03/12/2008, -0/+1Yes, I know it's not a step backwards. I meant it looks like a step backwards. In terms of aesthetics only.
  • garryw, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1Designed on paper and pencil. I have seen the drawings. Nuts.
    • markopyhajarvi, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1Man, I'd like to see them as well! Anyhow, great pic!
  • Grudniz, on 03/11/2008, -0/+0it looks new?
    ha!
    look how big it is....the new thing now is slim!
  • lex0nyc, on 03/11/2008, -0/+3I had that picture on a placemat when I was a kid!
  • MortalynFlux, on 03/11/2008, -0/+2This huge leap forward in space travel was done only 12 years after the disposable rocket technology we used to land on the moon. It seemed like a cool intermediary step in the direction of space planes. But it's been 26 years, and we're still stuck with that space-rig landing-brick. I wonder what the cost of the Iraq war would have gotten us if we had instead spend the resources on space travel and research on new, portable sources of energy instead?
    • dstachio, on 03/11/2008, -0/+2About 10-20 manned missions to mars.
  • MoralThreat, on 03/11/2008, -0/+7Beautiful ship. She's sorely missed.
  • Slybri, on 03/11/2008, -0/+9I was there at Cape Canaveral that day, when the Columbia first launched. My dad worked for NASA and pulled me and my sister out of school to go see it. I was only in fouth grade, but I remember it vividly. Studying the shuttle through my binoculars, gleaming white under the spotlights in the predawn gloom. The electricity in the crowd counting down the last seconds. The cloud of steam shooting out of the launch site silently before the sound reached us. And the sound was so powerful, you could feel the air, like fabric, ripping around you, even though we were miles away. And the crowd cheering "Go BABY GO!" as it climbed and rolled up into space on a tower of clouds and fire. One of my favorite childhood memories.
    • Amplix, on 03/11/2008, -0/+3Nicely written - I'm going to try my best to make it out east for one of the launches before they retire these Shuttles. They're an awesome sight when they take off.
  • murlox, on 03/11/2008, -1/+1You could tell it's old picture because they no longer white-painted the fuel tank in order to save cost.
  • dudefaceguyman, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1Awesome pic. Good timing too, I could use a new wallpaper.
  • Dan11023, on 03/11/2008, -0/+6Columbia RIP
    April 12, 1981 - February 1, 2003
  • fuseideas, on 03/11/2008, -0/+4I was at this launch. My parents let me take a week off from school and my Dad drove us from Massachusetts to Florida (straight)! The launch was scrubbed twice before the actual launch. Which meant once we got out of traffic we got to spend a day at Disney, then Seaworld. The launch was amazing, the sun had only been up for a little. We were across the bay from the launch pad and as I remember, the launch was LOUD.
    • justanotherday, on 03/12/2008, -0/+1It was after the first launch that they instituted the "water sound-suppression system". In fact, the overpressure from ignition extended the body flap past the point where hydraulic damage would be expected, making a safe re-entry impossible. Fortunately, it was really over-engineered.
  • lebatte, on 03/11/2008, -3/+2It was twenty years ago today, Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play.
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