Wow.....I just had tears in my eyes watching the ABC coverage of the launch linked above. What a flood of memories.
It was a great era, a different one than today. Beside young, there was still a lot of Apollo people working in the Launch Control Center and Mission Control Center back then
I also have an extreme feeling of dejection, 29 years later, of not fulfilling that 10 year-old's goal of becoming a NASA Astronaut.
Hey, we do have SSM2007 at least
Young and Crippen had absolute BALLS OF STEEL to fly the first untested, unflown powered flight of the shuttle. I can't even imagine.
Yes. Especially Young is a real hero. His heart rate was 90 during lift off, Youngs was 130. I could imagine that mine would have even been something like 160
But Young always was a calm guy, and known for his dry sense of humor. At lift off of Apollo 16 Young even had a heart beat of only 70 (while Charles Duke for example had a heart beat of over 140). Young: "mine is too old to go any faster"
Young has flown on Gemini, walked on the Moon while he got the message that the Space Shuttle vote has passed the house, and he tested the Space Shuttle. A real space flight hero.
Testing something manned would be impossible today. Everybody, especially the public, is crying for 99,9% safety. Or like Jim Lovell criticises these days: "we are afraid of having accidents".
The last Space Shuttle flight will be very emotional on all sides I guess, viewers and NASA people. Will be interesting to hear the final words from Mission Control and possibly a ceremony or something like that...
