STS-1 First Shuttle Flight: April 12, 1981
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa5OxN6kSsA
NASA TV's This Week @NASA, April 9
"NASA ANNIVERSARY: April 12, 1981, STS-1 -- First Shuttle Launch
Twenty-nine years ago, on April 12, 1981, space shuttle Columbia was launched from the Kennedy Space Center. Commanded by Gemini and Apollo veteran John Young and piloted by first-time flyer Bob Crippen, this first space shuttle mission, STS-1, was also the first U.S. manned orbital space flight since the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project almost six years earlier. Columbia made its ascent into orbit, where Young and Crippen checked out all of its systems. The orbiter landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base, California on April 14 after 37 trips around the Earth.
John Young: "We had practiced a lot of malfunctions, and we were checking out all the systems and making sure they worked, and they worked beautifully."
Bob Crippen: "I wanted to make sure that I did my part of the mission well and it was fun, all the way."
And that's This Week at NASA! "
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/podcasting/twan_4_9_10.html
