First shuttle pilot laments end of era

Robert Crippen was a household name 30 years ago with his picture plastered across the front pages of nearly every newspaper and news magazine as he and John Young thundered into orbit on the first flight of the space shuttle.
Today the veteran of four shuttle flights is making the rounds talking to crowds about his historic first flight and lamenting the coming end of the space shuttle era of manned spaceflight.
“I’m sorry to see this part of the space program end. … It’s been a stunning adventure for 30 years,” he said during a speech at the 18th International Academy of Astronautics Humans in Space Symposium last Thursday at the Westin Galleria Hotel.
Two days earlier Crippen was at Kennedy Space Center on the stage with NASA Director Charles Bolden when he announced where the retiring shuttles would be displayed. In an interview after this talk, Crippen was reluctant to share his feelings about Houston’s shuttle snub.
“There really was no way NASA could win on this with only four vehicles … and 20-some applicants,” he said. “I thought they spread them out pretty good, though obviously Houston is disappointed.”
The announcement was made on April 12, the 30th anniversary of the first shuttle flight. Crippen’s remarks in Houston came two days later, on the anniversary of the first landing.
“The launch was great, but the landing was even greater,” he quipped during his speech.
Commanding Columbia on the historic flight was John Young, a veteran astronaut whose previous voyage to space took him to the moon.
“John Young was a natural for being commander of the first flight,” Crippen said. “He was chief of the astronaut office, so he got to pick who went on the flight.”
He said Young selected him as pilot to help expand NASA’s experience base. It was Young’s fifth flight and Crippen’s first. Crippen went on to command three more shuttle flights on Challenger, one in 1983 and twice in 1984.
The first flight met with many delays, most notably the tiles that kept falling off and the main engines that kept exploding in tests.
“The engines are really, really powerful and fragile,” he said.
Safety has always been a top concern for NASA. “We did have ejector seats on the first four flights, but to me that was a placebo,” Crippen said, noting that the tongue of orange flame would instantly vaporize the astronauts if they ejected during flight.
After two days in space putting the shuttle through its shakedown paces, it was time to return home. “Entry was a thing of beauty from my standpoint,” he said. He added that even though they were traveling through space at 17,500 mph, it wasn’t until they were landing that he got a feel for their speed.
“The clouds going by gave me much more sense of speed going by,” he said.
He was caught by surprise when he looked out the window and saw thousands of vehicles parked around the runway at Edwards Air Force Base to view the landing.
“It’s a bittersweet time for me as the program comes to a close,” he said.
He gave a short pitch for a book he helped work on called Wings in Orbit, detailing the shuttle era. Crippen also advocated for the administration to put NASA back on course for continued human spaceflight and exploration. After the last two shuttle flights, NASA will have to depend on Russian Soyuz capsules for transportation to and from the International Space Station.
“It’s sad to see the shuttle come to an end without a definite plan where we’re going in the future,” he said. He added that he feels humans should first establish a base on the moon and then shoot for Mars and beyond.