The Space Shuttle: 2. The greatest test flight

13 Minutes Presents: The Space Shuttle

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, History

9.5 • 4.7K Ratings

🗓️ 21 July 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The astronauts count down to flying a brand-new spacecraft for the very first time. If they pull it off, they will earn a place in space history.

The rocket is built. The astronauts are trained. Mission control is ready. Space Shuttle Columbia is about to attempt the unheard of. A crewed test flight. It's 12 April 1981. The morning of launch for the very first space shuttle mission. The shuttle is sitting on the launchpad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. And strapped into their seats on the flight deck of orbiter Columbia are commander John Young and pilot Bob Crippen.

Everyone at Nasa has been waiting almost a decade for this day. It’s taken an army of designers, engineers, ground crew, flight controllers, and backroom staff to get to this point. To bring this vehicle to life. Will this new machine fly?

This episode contains scenes some listeners may find upsetting.

Some scenes in this series use recreated sound effects.

13 Minutes Presents: The Space Shuttle is a BBC Audio Science Unit production for BBC World Service.

Hosted by space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock.

Theme music by Hans Zimmer and Christian Lundberg, and produced by Russell Emanuel, for Bleeding Fingers Music.

Archive: Launch of STS-1, BBC, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, 1981 Mission audio and oral histories, Nasa History Office

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Mariana Spring, the BBC's social media investigations correspondent.
0:06.0	In my podcast, I've been investigating what happened to the daughter of a conspiracy theorist who died having rejected chemotherapy.
0:13.0	It would mean the world to me if I could make it that she wasn't just another in the long line of people that die in this way.
0:19.0	How does this reflect the rise of health conspiracy theories on social media and beyond?
0:24.8	The new series of Mariana in Conspiracy Land, listen on BBC Sounds.
0:30.4	Episodes of 30 Minutes Presents the Space Shuttle are released weekly,
0:34.8	wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
0:41.9	But if you're in the UK, you can listen to the full season right now,
0:44.4	first on BBC Sounds.
0:49.3	This episode contains scenes some listeners might find upsetting.
0:55.0	And some scenes in this series use recreated sound effects.
1:06.0	Every big event needs a dress rehearsal, including the launch of a new spacecraft.
1:13.6	It's three and a half weeks before the launch of the first space shuttle mission, STS1. And this morning is the end of a two-day dress rehearsal, the countdown demonstration test.
1:21.6	The shuttle is sitting on the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
1:28.8	On the flight deck of Orbiter Columbia, our commander John Young and pilot Bob Crippin.
1:38.1	The entire team is involved, including shuttle processing engineer John Tribe.
1:45.0	We were just about ready for flight. We were within weeks of flight.
1:50.0	Right from the early days, he's helped design the launch pad to ensure the shuttle and the pad are completely integrated.
1:58.0	This is a chance to check everything works. So he's been closely
2:02.4	watching the countdown demonstration test. At the end of the test, the operations guys were
2:10.2	mainly concerned with getting the crew out of the vehicle, getting them off the pad,
2:15.1	getting the pad back open.
	...

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