04/12/06: Remembering STS-1 and Yuri Gagarin.

On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, orbiting the Earth in Vostok 1. The flight lasted 108 minutes and Gagarin parachuted out of the spacecraft after reentry.

Yuri was the back-up cosmonaut on Soyuz 1 in 1967. The Soviet leader Brezhnev wanted a Soviet mission launched quickly, in time for the May 1 communist celebrations. The first Soyuz was a death trap, and the cosmonauts knew it, but Vladimir Komarov went through with the mission, to spare the life of his friend Gagarin. After the death of Komarov in the Soyuz 1 disaster, Yuri was permanently grounded from space flight, but died in an aircraft accident in 1968, aged only 34.

Vladimir Komarov (March 16, 1927 - April 24, 1967). "If I don't make this flight, they'll send the backup pilot instead. That's [Yuri Gagarin], and he'll die instead of me."

On April 12, 1981, the first Space Shuttle mission, STS-1 Columbia, was launched, with Apollo and Gemini veteran John Young and Bob Crippen on board, in what was a bold test flight; no Shuttle had flown in space before¹, and no spacecraft had had a crew on its first flight. STS-1 Columbia launched from Pad 39A just under 11 years and one day after Apollo 13, and twenty years after Yuri Gagarin's Vostok 1.

Mission STS-1 (Space Transportation System - 1) saw the first use of the reusable Solid Rocket Boosters (which were recovered from the Atlantic after launch) and the External Tank. The mission saw a number of firsts, including the first opening of the payload bay doors.

¹ There had been eight Approach and Landing Test flights in 1977, in the air, with Apollo 13 LEM Pilot Fred Haise as the first Commander (he was on five of the ALT flights of Enterprise).

- DJC; STS-1 image credits: NASA

04/27/06: Astronaut Bob Crippen Awarded Congressional Space Medal of Honor.