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The spotlights came on in the predawn hours\h
of April 12th 1981, illuminating a spacecraft\h\h

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like no other, the space shuttle. Just before\h
liftoff, Columbia's crew climbed inside for the\h\h

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very first test flight into space. Today, we\h
recall the amazing story of that first mission\h\h

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and listen to rarely-heard details from Columbia\h
pilot Bob Crippen, next on the Rocket Ranch.\h

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EGS Program Chief Engineer,\h
verify no constraints to launch.\h

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Three, two, one, and lift off.
Welcome to space.\h

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Bob Crippen, was a rookie astronaut in 1978,\h
when NASA assigned him and veteran astronaut\h\h

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John Young to train for the\h
very first space shuttle flight.\h

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I was ready to turn handsprings at that moment.
The launch was nearly perfect.\h

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Not a ride like it anywhere else.
After getting to space,\h\h

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Crippen made a disturbing discovery. Some of the\h
protective tiles on the spacecraft were missing.\h

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A lot of people on the ground worried that there\h
were some missing there, maybe some were missing\h\h

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on the bottom, which would be critical.
The fearless astronaut recounts the best\h\h

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stories from the first shuttle flight and shares\h
his thoughts on the space shuttle's legacy.\h

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I believe that some of those\h
payloads helped us win the cold war.\h

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Here now, four time space shuttle astronaut,\h
Bob Crippin. Welcome to the rocket ranch.\h

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Thank you very much, Pleased to be here.
Oh, what was it like to be selected for this\h\h

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very first mission of the space shuttle?
It was a very exciting moment for me.\h\h

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On the very first flight, John Young, who\h
ended up being the commander was the most\h\h

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likely guy in the office to do it. He was our\h
most experienced astronaut, flown four times,\h\h

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including Apollo 16 and walked on the moon. I\h
expected him to be the commander of the first\h\h

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flight, but I expected the other seat would be\h
occupied by somebody else that had flown before.\h\h

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I was very pleasantly surprised when George\h
Abbey, who was our big boss at that time,\h\h

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asked me if I'd like to fly the first one. I was\h
really turning handsprings at that moment, but\h\h

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I'd been working a long time towards it. I\h
guess the powers that be decided they wanted to\h\h

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expand our experience basis as fast\h
as possible. On the initial flights,\h\h

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they paired a guy who had flown before\h
with a rookie like myself, and I ended\h\h

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up being lucky enough to be on the first one.
Wow, I can imagine that moment when he told you\h\h

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that you were the guy, must've been incredible,\h
like you said, you were doing handsprings.\h

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I joined the astronaut office in 1969, it\h
had been a while working there towards the\h\h

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flight. In fact, Deke Slayton, when he\h
hired us, told us we probably wouldn't\h\h

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be able to fly it until around 1980.
You and astronaut John Young, what an\h\h

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interesting pair you kind of mentioned it there.\h
He had all this experience, here he was a veteran\h\h

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of NASA space flight, Gemini, Apollo, he walked on\h
the moon. This was going to be your first flight,\h\h

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so a very unlikely pairing some would\h
say. What was the relationship like?\h

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John was my big boss at that time, so I\h
hadn’t really worked that close with him,\h\h

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but we developed a very close working relationship\h
and friendship during the time training for the\h\h

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flight. We had more time to train them we had\h
initially planned on. John was a great guy.\h\h

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When you're a rookie going up for the first\h
time, it's great to go with a guy with that\h\h

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kind of experience. I'm just sorry that\h
John can't be with us here to celebrate\h\h

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this 40th anniversary with myself.
Certainly understand that John Young\h\h

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passed away in 2018 at the age of 87,\h
and he is missed. So the space shuttle,\h\h

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10 years in the design process launched like a\h
rocket, went into space for several weeks and\h\h

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then came back down like an airplane. This was\h
a highly complex machine. Your job, I believe,\h\h

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was working with the computers and the electrical\h
systems. How complex of a machine was this?\h

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It was a very complex machine, perhaps\h
the most complex we'd ever built.\h\h

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We did have some initial problems technically\h
because of that. It took us a while to get ready\h\h

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for that first flight. We had problems with our\h
main engines and also with our thermal protection\h\h

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system, the tiles, and we had other problems as\h
well, but those ended up being the big ones that\h\h

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caused the delay. It was a complex machine,\h
and it was a fabulous machine in retrospect.\h

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What impressed you the most about it as\h
a spacecraft, and then also as a glider?\h

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What impressed me most was that we would actually\h
fly back in and land on the runway as opposed to\h\h

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parachute in the ocean some place to get\h
picked up. As a pilot, that is a much more\h\h

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satisfying way to come back. It was overall the\h
fact that it could carry very large payloads,\h\h

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and has allowed us to do some\h
fantastic things with it. It\h\h

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was a great machine. I'm really proud of it.
The only way of proving this space shuttle,\h\h

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that it would work, was to fly it with crew in it\h
on the very first mission. It's really incredible\h\h

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to think about you and John Young, flying the\h
space shuttle, no previous test flight in a\h\h

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un-crewed position. Many of your contemporaries\h
have said that this was for that reason that this\h\h

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was one of the boldest test flights in history.\h
Did you have a sense of that at that time?\h

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Not as much as some people have talked about\h
and some of my aviator friends might argue this,\h\h

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some others rivaled it as well, but it was\h
an interesting thing. I don't know that we'll\h\h

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ever do that again. The design of the shuttle was\h
such that we had never designed to be able to fly\h\h

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without a crew. There was some discussion maybe\h
about a year prior to flight as to whether\h\h

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we should do that or not, but it would delay us\h
even more, and been very costly. John and I both\h\h

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thought that the best chance of the mission\h
being a success was for us to be onboard.\h\h

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Thank goodness they ended up agreeing with us.
Was there any hesitation, any worry or any concern\h\h

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in the lead up to launch?
John and I both, we knew the vehicle very well\h\h

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and we knew the people that were working on it.\h
We spent a lot of time going out to the various\h\h

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companies that were assembling it. We thought that\h
we can handle any problems that were given to us.\h\h

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Maybe it’s because we were test pilots, we\h
thought that we could deal with anything.\h

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You guys were certainly the right stuff.\h
Let's go back to that day, April 12th, 1981,\h\h

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here at the Kennedy space center, you're strapped\h
in the seconds are ticking down to liftoff.\h\h

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Kind of explain to me and take me through what\h
you remember what you recall about those moments.\h

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I still remember them very well, I think. We\h
actually tried on April the 10th for a launch,\h\h

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and we ended up with a computer\h
problem that caused us to scrub.\h\h

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The vehicle was, as I said before, very complex.\h
It didn't surprise me that we scrubbed. When\h\h

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some people, smart people, solved that computer\h
problem, and we tried again on the 12th two days\h\h

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later. I fully expected there was a good\h
chance that we were going to scrub again.\h\h

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It was only when the count got inside of about\h
a minute that I turned to John, and I said,\h\h

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“I think we might really do it.” I think it was\h
at that point, my heart rate went up to about 130,\h\h

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it was probably one of the most exciting moments\h
of my life. The flight certainly lived up to it.\h

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That's funny that you mentioned that because I\h
have the Today newspaper from after that flight\h\h

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with a headline, Columbia is a gem and there\h
is the launch of the space shuttle in that.\h\h

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And it's funny you mentioned your heart rate\h
at 130, and that's exactly what it was reported\h\h

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being. I'll just read from this part right here,\h
it said that “a cool collected 50 year old young,\h\h

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whose heartbeat was a steady 85 during liftoff\h
commented, I've got a super spaceship under me, as\h\h

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he and Crippen whizzed around the Earth. ‘What a\h
feeling! What a view!,’ said 43 year old Crippen,\h\h

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whose heartbeat jumped to 130 at liftoff.” So\h
yours was 130 and his was 85. That's a cool cat.\h

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He is although it wasn't reported, but John's\h
heart rate on the landing was closer to my 130.\h

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Let the record show. Well, I tell you as it lifted\h
off tell me about what kind of ride that was like.\h

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It was an exciting ride. Prior to that time,\h
especially with the Saturns, it was very slow\h\h

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to lift off. But when the space shuttle was\h
about to, lit the solid rockets, it lifted off\h\h

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with a nice fast acceleration. The only thing\h
I've been able to liken it to was a catapult\h\h

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shot coming off an aircraft carrier. It got up\h
and moved out I guess because it was winged.\h\h

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Most people had never realized that all of\h
the other expendable vehicles tend to rotate\h\h

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right after they lift off to get themselves\h
oriented in the direction they want to go.\h\h

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When we rotated, I understand it made a lot\h
of the spectators kind of nervous because\h\h

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they thought something was wrong, but all\h
it was doing was what it was supposed to do.\h

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It was rather noisy, a lot of shaking\h
going on with those solid rockets.\h\h

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I've likened it to driving my pickup down an\h
old country washboard road, you just kind of\h\h

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shake it along but that lasts about two\h
minutes and it's quite a ride. You get up\h\h

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but the acceleration is not that much,\h
you’re only three G’s, that’s the max.\h\h

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We throttled the engines actually to\h
maintain that not for the crew, but\h\h

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for the payloads that we'd be carrying. After the\h
solid rockets burned out, actually that really\h\h

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got my attention, because we went from three G’s\h
down to about a half a G and it got very quiet,\h\h

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very still, no shaking. I thought for a moment,\h
maybe the main engines had quit too, but\h\h

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checking the instruments that said they were still\h
running. And then accelerating on out to three G’s\h\h

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again and eight and a half minutes ago in 17,500\h
miles an hour, not a ride like it anywhere else.\h

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I can only imagine, wow, just listening to\h
your description of it is thrilling in it\h\h

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of itself. So you circled the earth 36 times,\h
you were up in space about two and a half days.\h\h

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What were the most memorable\h
moments from that flight?\h

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I like to use John's phrase for that. The part\h
between takeoff and landing, it was all memorable.\h\h

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First the ride up was exciting,\h
and then all of a sudden you're\h\h

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floating around and getting weightless\h
experience for the first time.\h\h

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And then you look out the window and see this\h
beautiful spaceship earth that we live on,\h\h

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all of that was remarkable. Perhaps the thing\h
that got most people's attention though was when\h\h

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I opened up the payload bay doors, we discovered\h
that some of our thermal protection system,\h\h

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the tiles were missing off the rear end\h
of the vehicle. John and I really weren't\h\h

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that concerned about that because those were there\h
for reusability only. But a lot of people on the\h\h

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ground worried that there were some missing there,\h
maybe some were missing on the bottom, which would\h\h

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be critical, but there wasn't anything that we\h
could see or observe that would allow us to check\h\h

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that out, so there wasn't any sense worrying\h
about it as far as John and I were concerned.\h

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You didn't worry at all?
No, I was just enjoying the experience.\h

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Wow. So the flight is completed.\h
You're getting ready to land,\h\h

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and as you're coming down I can imagine the\h
re-entry of this vehicle for the first time.\h\h

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How did it perform when it was\h
coming back into Earth's atmosphere?\h

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It was fantastic, there were a lot of aerodynamic\h
things that we had to worry about, but the vehicle\h\h

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flew beautifully. It did reach\h
some limits that we had to\h\h

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be a little bit concerned about with the way\h
our body flat was moving and a few other things.\h\h

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In essence, it was a beautiful landing all the way\h
up from when we did the deorbit burn to touchdown.\h\h

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John took over a few times during entry during\h
the roll reversals, just to get the feel of\h\h

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the vehicle. When we came out of blackout, the\h
ground got excited because they knew we hadn't,\h\h

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the tiles must've been okay because we’d\h
survived that. I remarked as we came over…\h

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Wow.
…the California coast,\h\h

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that that was a great way to come to California.\h
It was a beautiful day in California too,\h\h

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we could see Edwards Air\h
Force Base our landing site\h\h

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from well over a hundred miles away.
I believe we could have just flown in\h\h

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visually, but we had good guidance. John took\h
over, and finally just as we came overhead,\h\h

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about 40,000 feet and started a big roll reversal.\h
When he rolled left, I looked out his left window\h\h

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and I looked down at the lakebed and there's\h
thousands of people out there. I said to John,\h\h

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hope they're not on the runway. They weren't thank\h
goodness. John brought the vehicle around and did\h\h

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a marvelous landing like I knew he would. John was\h
about as excited at that point as I've ever seen\h\h

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him.
225,000 people\h\h

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it was reported Bob, were there on that dry\h
lakebed watching, what was that site like?\h

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Well, as I said, it got my attention when I first\h
saw them, but after that we weren't paying any\h\h

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attention to it. However, after we got out of\h
the vehicle and the docs had checked us over,\h\h

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they had a little ceremony out on the lakebed\h
with the governor of California, and some other\h\h

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dignitaries. The crowd was out there as well. I\h
remember very well when I was a kid growing up\h\h

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in the Houston area we used to go to the rodeo\h
every year. One year they'd have Gene Autry,\h\h

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another year they'd have Roy Rogers. I'd always\h
go down to the edge of the arena and hold out my\h\h

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hand, and they'd ride around and shake hands with\h
everybody. As I was sitting there on the podium\h\h

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after landing, I looked down at the crowd\h
and there was Roy Rodgers, so I got up\h\h

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and walked over and shook hands with him.
What a special moment that must've been.\h

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It was.
So you're there on the ground, and\h\h

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there were celebrities everywhere. You mentioned\h
Roy Rogers, what was your sense of the moment,\h\h

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what you had accomplished after getting out and\h
being welcomed back home to such a grand affair?\h

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It's hard to capture emotions like that but\h
both John and I were on a high. We were really\h\h

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excited the vehicle performed as well as\h
it did. I was excited I hadn't screwed up.\h\h

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But we were just enjoying the moment.
After STS-1, Crippin was selected for\h\h

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three more space shuttle missions and the\hprogram was flying high\hthe first five years

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until the Challenger accident in 1986, and then the
Columbia accident in 2003.

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Together,\h\hthose accidents claimed\h
the lives of 14 astronauts.\h

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Bob, you flew four space shuttle missions on two\h
orbiters, Columbia and Challenger, and both were\h\h

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destroyed in mission accidents we know in 1986,\h
and in 2003, and of course 14 astronauts lost.\h\h

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I know you knew many of them, you were close to\h
many of them. In fact, you flew with Dick Scobee,\h\h

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I believe who was lost in Challenger. Would you\h
share what kind of impact those accidents had\h\h

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on you personally and professionally\h
being that you flew on both of those?\h

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They were terrible tragedies, probably one of\h
the worst experiences I ever had in my life.\h\h

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I was actually training for a fifth flight\h
that we were going to do out of California\h\h

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to launch out of Vandenberg Air\h
Force Base on the space shuttle.\h\h

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I was in Los Alamos, New Mexico, working\h
with the crew training on one of our payloads\h\h

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when we watched the launch of the STS-51L,\h
and we were irritated at the TV coverage\h\h

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because they showed the liftoff and then\h
they cut to a soap opera or something. And\h\h

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we were saying foul words walking out of\h
the room when the picture came back to the\h\h

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terrible sight of the solid rockets peeling\h
off of the space shuttle. And, well, I knew\h\h

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as soon as I saw the accident that the crew\h
was lost. I had very good friends onboard,\h\h

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just as you said I flew with Dick Scobee. He\h
was on my third flight. He was my pilot on that.\h

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It was a sad moment, one that I'll\h
never forget. Every anniversary\h\h

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it tears me up a little bit. This year was the\h
35th anniversary of that, that terrible tragedy.\h\h

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But NASA did what it usually does in that\h
kind of thing, it pulled itself together\h\h

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tried to correct the mistakes, and got\h
back flying again. I was part of the\h\h

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investigation. I ended up making a recommendation\h
that we ought to put more operational people\h\h

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in the management of the shuttle. My boss\h
told me if I believe that I'd come help him\h\h

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manage the program. That was when I hung up\h
my flying boots, and tried to get the shuttle\h\h

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back flying again, which we did eventually.
I was completely retired when we lost Columbia.\h\h

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I have a daughter who works there at the\h
Johnson Space Center, Susie Crippen, and Susie\h\h

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called me up on the day the vehicle was\h
re-entering, and said they lost contact with it.\h\h

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She and I both knew that meant that they lost\h
the vehicle and the crew as well. I knew some\h\h

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of the crew, I didn't know them nearly as well as\h
I did the 51L crew, but it was another sad day.\h

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Thank you for sharing that with us. It's\h
interesting to me that you took it as a motivation\h\h

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to get into management, to be involved, to have...\h
You were an astronaut, now you put yourself\h\h

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in the operations. Did that carry through\h
with you throughout your management career?\h

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Well, you know, my initial thought was let's get\h
the vehicle back flying again and do it safely.\h\h

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At least, I personally believed that was what\h
the crew that we lost would have wanted us to do.\h\h

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I did learn some lessons throughout that, that\h
actually returned it to making that happen,\h\h

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which I worked with a lot of people like Tony\h
Aldridge, who was the director of the space\h\h

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shuttle program at that point. And Dick Coors, who\h
was looking over the engineering. The three of us\h\h

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worked hard for a couple of years to make\h
that happen. We were all very proud of it when\h\h

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Rick Hauck, who I had flown with on my\h
second flight successfully lifted off again.\h

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Bob, the collective history of the space shuttle\h
program is impressive, right? It was used to\h\h

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repair damaged satellites while in orbit, the most\h
striking being the Hubble telescope. It was also,\h\h

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it flew 37 shuttle flights, which were necessary\h
to, to build the international space station,\h\h

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which 20 years after humans first got aboard is\h
still up there doing great science; 135 missions,\h\h

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542 million miles, it was a long program. What do\h
you think the legacy of the space shuttle program\h\h

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is that all began with your first flight?
I think it was one of undoubtedly the most\h\h

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fantastic flying machines we've ever built. As\h
you said, it allowed us to do some great things.\h\h

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One early on, we were flying flights\h
for the department of defense. And\h\h

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I believe that some of those payloads helped\h
us win the cold war. And as you said, we\h\h

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also were able to do the great observatories,\h
including Hubble, that's enlightened us\h\h

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considerably about the nature of our universe and\h
went on to build the International Space Station,\h\h

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which is still flying today. We had the two\h
terrible tragedies that shouldn't have happened\h\h

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in my opinion, but they did. It was a fantastic\h
flying machine, but it was also a fragile one,\h\h

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took lots of TLC, and the people at Kennedy Space\h
Center were very good at that. When Atlantis\h\h

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landed after the last flight, that vehicle was as\h
good a condition as it could have possibly been,\h\h

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and was certainly capable of flying some\h
more, but the politics, and the accidents\h\h

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spelled the end of that. It'll be a long\h
time before we have a vehicle that's nearly\h\h

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as magnificent as the space shuttle was.
It was certainly one of a kind and now as we see\h\h

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spacecraft manufacturers going back to the capsule\h
design for all the advantages, it just certainly\h\h

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cements its place in history. For many reasons\h
as you mentioned if not alone, just how unique\h\h

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it was. You had a career at NASA in management,\h
so I would be remiss if I didn't ask you about\h\h

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your time working out here at the rocket ranch,\h
the Kennedy Space Center, what was that like?\h

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That was fantastic as director of the Kennedy\h
Space Center. That was my dream job. The only\h\h

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better one was sitting in the cockpit of the\h
space shuttle. I first visited them the Kennedy\h\h

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Space Center in, I believe it was 1967 before I\h
was with NASA. I fell in love with the place. I\h\h

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always felt that was where the rubber hits the\h
road as far as the space program is concerned.\h\h

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The people that work there from the janitors on\h
up to the center director, love it. Love what\h\h

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they're doing and they do a fantastic job of it.
You’ve now got the new program Artemis, which\h\h

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we've got rocket parts inside the VAB right now.\h
And you talked about what it was like to ride\h\h

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those solid rocket boosters that's their plans to\h
make that happen again. The SLS of course as you\h\h

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know has two solid rocket boosters so that ride's\h
coming back. What are your thoughts about Artemis\h\h

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going back to the moon and then establishing a\h
presence there so we can learn how to get to Mars?\h

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We do need to get out of Earth orbit. We need to\h
go back to the moon. That's the right thing to do,\h\h

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we need to learn to live and work off of this\h
planet. There are still some great things we\h\h

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can do on the moon. A lot of people say we've been\h
there, we've done that. But really those were like\h\h

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six camping trips. They didn't last very\h
long and we need to go back and learn to,\h\h

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to live on the moon, then eventually fly on\h
to Mars. That will happen some day. I don't\h\h

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think I'll be around to see it though.
Bob, I'm going to leave you with this. I\h\h

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found this picture here. I'm going to put it\h
up to the screen so you can see it. This is,\h\h

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this is you and John Young, 40 years ago.\h
Handsome devil there signing autographs.\h

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We've done that a few times.
What was that like to be\h\h

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an astronaut celebrity?
Well, I guess it\h\h

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comes with the job, that wasn't what John\h
and I were fond of. But it was part of what\h\h

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we needed to do to make people appreciate what\h
the space shuttle had done and what it could do.\h\h

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John and I spent a while after that first flight\h
doing what I call the rubber chicken circuit, and\h\h

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signing lots of autographs and talking to\h
people, and telling them about the program.\h

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Bob Crippen, pilot for the Space Shuttle Columbia,\h
the very first launch of the space shuttle.\h\h

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Thank you so much for being on\h
and stopping by the rocket ranch.\h

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Thank you for having me.

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And that’s going to do it for\h
this episode of the Rocket Ranch.\h

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A special thanks to our\h
guest astronaut Bob Crippen.\h\h

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If you liked this podcast, please subscribe!
A special shout-out to our producer,\h\h

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John Sackman, and editor Chris\h
Chamberland. I’m your host,\h\h