Tag: Bob Crippen
-
SpaceX got the fanfare, but Boeing’s first crew flight is still historic
If you want to know what it’s like to take a new spacecraft on its first test run in orbit, there are only three people in the Western world you can call. That fact should drive home the rarity of debuting a new human-rated spaceship. When Boeing’s Starliner capsule lifts off Monday night, this group…
-
April 12 marks 60 years since Gagarin’s spaceflight, 40 years since shuttle debut
Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin before launch April 12, 1961. Credit: Roscosmos Sixty years ago Monday, a 27-year-old Russian test pilot named Yuri Gagarin strapped into a Vostok capsule in Central Asia and rode into orbit atop a launcher derived from a Soviet nuclear missile, becoming the first human to travel into the void of space. Twenty…
-
April 12, 1981: 35 years since the maiden space shuttle launch
America’s first space shuttle launched on this day 35 years ago as the reusable flying machine, Columbia, lifted off from Kennedy Space Center with John Young and Bob Crippen aboard. The launch came 20 years to the day after human spaceflight began. Yuri Gagarin launched aboard Vostok 1 to become the first person to orbit…