The STS-1 crew, Robert Crippen (center) and John Young (right) train for their upcoming mission–the first flight of space shuttle Columbia–in this photo from March 17, 1981. The flight occurred on April 12, 1981, thirty-seven years ago today, and began a new era in spaceflight. Then-Vice President George H.W. Bush joined the crew as they all jogged around NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, during Bush’s whirlwind tour of the center and launch facilities for the shuttle’s first flight.
Today is also the United Nations International Day of Human Spaceflight, in accordance with resolution A/RES/65/271 of April 7, 2011. The resolution celebrates “the international level the beginning of the space era for mankind, reaffirming the important contribution of space science and technology in achieving sustainable development goals and increasing the well-being of States and peoples, as well as ensuring the realization of their aspiration to maintain outer space for peaceful purposes.”
On April 12, 1961, the era of human spaceflight began when the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth in his Vostok spacecraft. The flight lasted 108 minutes. Twenty years later, on the morning of April 12, 1981, two astronauts sat strapped into their seats on the flight deck of Columbia, a radically new spacecraft known as the space shuttle.
Image Credit: NASA