General Discussion > Historical Spaceflight

The Life of Columbia

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mkirk:

With the 25th Anniversary of STS-1 coming up I would like to start a new thread that will hopefully unify some of the pictures and stories we have seen posted recently about Columbia. As part of my consulting work I have been working on a project about STS-1 for a couple of news organizations. After looking at a lot of NASA pics and some of my own I have gotten a little nostalgic. I was very young but STS-1 had a huge impact on me and of course many years latter so did STS-107.



I thought I would begin by posting these pics of Columbia after she arrived at KSC in March of 79...picking up where PSLOSS's pictures left off. These are NASA pics, I will add more including my own of Columbia's later life if the thread grows.



I find the third picture particularly interesting. If you look by the cockpit windows you can see a mobile launch platform (MLP) being modified for the shuttle. To the right of that you see another MLP with the LUT (Launch Umbilical Tower) originally called the SLUT (for Saturn Launch Umbilical Tower) but even in the 60's political correctness had its way. You can see the Milk-Stool used to boost the smaller Saturn IB's up to the swingarms used for the upperstages of the Saturn V. At the time that picture was taken (March 1979) it had been almost 4 years since the last U.S. manned launch of Apollo-Soyuz in July 1975 from that platform. It would be 2 more years before Columbia would fly.



Mark

SRBseparama:

A great idea and a fitting tribute.



A question. How do people class when an orbiter's birthday is?

Jamie Young:

Great thread and great images. When is the actual date of her 'birthday/anniversay'?

Hotol:

Keep them coming as these are rare pictures.

UK Shuttle Clan:

Oh yeah, that SLUT :) does look a bit wierd.

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