Into the Black

On 12th April 1981 a revolutionary new spacecraft blasted off from Florida on her maiden flight.  NASA's Space Shuttle Columbia was the most advanced flying machine ever built - the high watermark of post-war aviation development.  A direct descendant of the record-breaking X-planes the likes of which Chuck Yeager had tested in the skies over the Mojave Desert, Columbia was a winged rocket plane, the size of an airliner, capable of flying to space and back before being made ready to fly again.  She was the world's first real spaceship.On board were men with the Right Stuff.   The Shuttle's Commander... Weiter