Emergency brainwash post...
Crippen and Young... Two of the hottest fighter pilots ever. The kind of pilots who flew F-4 Phantoms into Vulcan gun range and traded heavy metal with comrades in Migs, then flipped them off, canopy to canopy, as they thundered past in afterburner.
Thirty years ago, these two Gods of Thunder did something so audacious it is hard to wrap our safety first before anything else minds around their amazing feat.
STS-1, Columbia, lifted off with these two guys in the cockpit. I remember listening to the launch on a car radio... One of them said, "It's a real barn burner." I almost cried... This was the first time any space shuttle had flown under its own power. It was the first time solid fuel boosters had ever been tried with pilots on the other end.
During the landing at Edwards two days later, one of the chase pilots flying formation with Columbia said, "Don't bounce it grandpa." Young had grandchildren... I almost cried.
They are old men now... Old Gods of Thunder forgotten by most but remembered by the few.
OK, I feel better... Emergency brainwash post after reading today's newspaper.
33 comments:
"The Boldest Flight Test In History", although I think Melville's X Prize flight deserves similar.
And here we are, 50 years after Mercury, 40 years after Apollo, 30 years after STS, with no man-rated space vehicle. The sheer idiocy of this makes me want to cry.....
I feel so privileged to be alive during the era of space exploration. What a profoundly stirring comment by Young's grandchild! The reality of space exploration and its heroes proved to be so much more exciting and courageous than our childhood comic books and movies could ever have foreseen. I can feel your emotion, Dave; thanks for sharing these memories.
I have vague recollections of seeing this on the telly on a ferry up near the Orkney Islands while on a school trip. I could, of course, be wrong - I was only 9 at the time.
Great post Captain Dave. It's great to remember those guys. The Canadian band Rush recorded a song about the launch of STS-1 shortly after the launch (you'll hear some Young and Crippen near the end) . It always gives me chills to listen to it. Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnD2VUo16PQ
:)
I still remember staying up late in to the night as a teenager watching John Young and Bob Crippen take Columbia up in to the skies. Gives me the chills even today.
Just like Concorde, we are retiring a fleet without its improved successor in place.
Capt. Dave, Believe me when I say I know what you mean.
“Come to the edge.”
“We can't. We're afraid.”
“Come to the edge.”
“We can't. We will fall!”
“Come to the edge.”
And they came.
And he pushed them.
And they flew.
Guillaume Apollinaire, 1880-1918
French Poet, Philosopher
And I was there!! Watched it from the old pier parking area across A1A from the main hangar at Patrick Air Force Base. I was proud & apprehensive (for the reasons you stated), but really elated at the successful launch (albeit on the second try). And today we find ourselves dependent upon the kindness of friends (?????) for manned access to space. At a price. Bleh. What has happened to NASA?? :-(
I recall the launch. The announcer clarified the the rotation of the launch vehicle was normal.
As an aside I also recall the first launch of the Saturn V and Walter Cronkites reaction to the awesome power.
@Larry Jones,
I wish blogs had a like button.
America can't build, maintain, and sustain a low-earth-orbit vehicle, but we sure know how to blow stuff up.
The priorities are, as almost always, in the wrong place.
Thanks for reminding of this tremendous accomplishment. Unfortunate that my children will only see our space programme in a museum, while they watch the Chinese and Russians fly by.
I saw the trail of Columbia's take-off that April morning in 1981 from a parking lot in Miramar Florida. I'll never forget it, wonder and pride! I had the honor of being aboard the Atlantis in pre-flight in 1997 in a technical capacity. I'll never forget it, wonder and pride! It's a disgrace that we now outsource our manned space flights to the Russians. Humiliating!
What was in "today's newspaper"? Google fails me, your post makes me think something happened to these too guys just now? Somebody please shed a light on the background of this post?!
You're our STAR, Captain Dave.
You / will / always / shine !!
Feel free to keep them coming !
I feel sure enough to say on behalf of ALL OF US....
We / will / never / tire / of / you / and / your / a-m-a-z-i-n-g / posts !
Blessings !
Bev
Cape Town
My mom let my brother and I skip school to stay home and watch the first shuttle launch. The launch was scrubbed the first day so we got to stay home again the next day for the second and successful attempt. Priorities!
Brings to mind Steve Buscemi's character's line from "Armageddon"(1998): "You know we're sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder. Makes you feel good, doesn't it?". Even without having a nuclear weapon in reality, it still makes me feel "good"...
Can't help but also bring up Bob Hoover here and his "tribute to space shuttle": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZBcapxGHjE
As always, happy flying to you Captain!
Roma
We try our best to keep the memory of those two guys:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Young_(astronaut)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_L._Crippen
-in English, and some 20+ other languages.
Best regards
Ulf Larsen
Voluntary contributor, Wikipedia
As history resides, John Watts Young will go down one as its greatest aviators, 81 years young now, his career was spellbinding, his humor was legendary, no person in my life have i admired more, J W Young was the "right Stuff"
Captain Dave, not sure what newspaper triggered your wonderful TOGA post but it was great to read and try to comprehend it. So in turn my question is are you sure they are quite so old men now? Their clocks aged slower than my earthbound one but how many hours of electric jet trajectory match ST1's 57 orbit time eductions?
It's a doggone shame. I'm a child of the Apollo era and while I won't say we haven't become (in some ways) a better society in the past 30 years, we certainly have lost our desire to do things, 'just because'.
So nice to come here Cap.
I checked and saw Haise and Fullerton's first free flight drop test here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-YNcwc1ZME&feature=related
It was 1977 and I was 24 and cocky,flying a bad a&% Cessna 421.
Holding my breath in a pilot's lounge somewhere.
I remember watching the landing live. John Young came bounding out of that bird like a high school quarterback who'd just won the big game. And in a way, he had. Right stuff, indeed.
I was present for the first 25 STS launches. I am not ashamed to admit I cried at #1 and inconsolably at #25.
The second generation of the Great Stuff.
There are three things that have always shone my thought for the wonderful non-war adventures of mankind, besides the gratest of them all - The '60s NASA programs -, and they are the Ernest Shackleton's Endurance of his Endurance crew in the Antartic; the continuing flight of the Concorde with people drinking champagne on blue suede shoes against the packed SR71 "astronauts" passing below; and finally the story of all these men who would go up where none of us could ever achieve to be, just to return and making it sort of a local flight, oh! and by landing a piece of metal with the glide ratio of a piano.
Thanks for you dedication to these men who might be forgotten only to become legendaries.
Hey Captain Dave,
This question is off subject, but how many hours do you have now?
Thanks,
Lawrence
Heh, after several days of staring at that shuttle launch picture you posted up there, it finally dawned on me what's wrong with it: STS-1 had the external tank painted white!
(first time commenter here, and I'm already criticizing, lol! Great writing, Captain, though! I'll make sure I'll read all your articles in my next vacation)
"Old Gods of Thunder forgotten by most but remembered by the few"...Epic!
I was visiting family at Houston when it happened.
Remember the feeling when the scrubbed the fist try and I was still sleeping when the they launched STS-1 on the second launch opportunity.
Great post (C)apt Dave!
Wilson
I remember this day too. It wasn't the solid rocket boosters that had me scared, it was those wacky thermal tiles protecting those guys from the intense heat of reentry. I think the tiles were more untested than the solid rocket boosters.
" But we can't explore space if the requirement is that there be no casualties; we can't do anything if the requirement is that there be no casualties."
Isaac Asimov, re the Challenger investigation, 1988
John Young is truly one of the founding fathers of the US Space Program. From Gemini (2 flights), to Apollo (10: dress rehearsal for 11, and 16: 3 days on the moon with a rover) to STS-1 and beyond. An amazing career, and STS-1 is right up there as one of the biggest achievments in space exploration. As you said Capt Dave: strapping on that thing for it's first test flight - WOW!
I wonder if Young asked "are we there yet?" as the shuttle settled on the runway?
I vageuly remember seeing a documentary on how the shuttle pilots practice the approach to the landing, I'm pretty sure it involved diving a modified business jet at the ground from a significant height and then going back up and repeating time after time!
Seems like a lot of aviation/spaceflight is going backwards - no more shuttle, no more concorde......
What next I wonder?
On that cheery note, All the best! :)
Dave from the UK
During the coverage of the first Columbia launch, Chuck Yeager admitted that John Young was as good a pilot as he (Yeager) was.
When it came time to *fly* Columbia the first time for real, they reached back for the two best Test Pilots they could get.
As Columbia thundered to orbit with Young in the left seat and Crippen riding shotgun, they ascended to the pinnacle of the pyramid where they remain unchallenged to this day. The Most Rightly Reverend John Young and the Reverend Robert Crippen, doing what only Test Pilots do: hang it out in the slipstream to expand the envelope.
When Columbia finally rolled to a stop on the most famous flight test runway in the world, John Young bounded out of the spacecraft 30 years younger and all but kissed her on the nose. Pure, unalloyed joy.
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