Shuttle Enterprise & the early promise of the STS

I love these old videos and the "oh, what could have been" thoughts that I get when looking back on them.

Here, we have NBC's special coverage of the first free flight of the Enterprise on its approach and landing test program in 1977. Note that in the promo video near the end of the film, they talk about up to 60 flights a year in the 1980s and plans to build up to 5 more orbiters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I8DZivcnMM&feature=related

Here's the second leg that shows the beginning of the free flight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-YNcwc1ZME&NR=1

As is mentioned during the video, the commander of this first so-called ALT ("Approach and Landing Test") flight was Fred Haise, one of the class of 19 astronauts selected by NASA in 1966, who was the Lunar Module Pilot for the Apollo 13 flight. Deprived of his opportunity to walk on the moon on account of the disabling explosion suffered by the Apollo spacecraft, Haise remained at NASA and ended up working on the Space Shuttle program. Haise was slated, I believe, to command one of the early Shuttle space flights, but after it became clear that the Columbia, the first Shuttle that would be capable of flying in space, was running seriously behind schedule -- while this first ALT flight took place in August 1977, the Columbia didn't finally make it into space until April 1981 -- he left NASA for a job in private industry.

Interestingly, the commander of the second ALT flight, in September 1977, was Joe Engle. Engle, who was also selected as part of the class of 19 astronauts in 1966 -- and who had dubbed themselves, in a mocking fashion, as "The Original 19" -- had originally been assigned to the prime crew, as Lunar Module Pilot, for Apollo 17, the last lunar mission. But he was bumped from that flight, and thus deprived as well of his chance to walk on the moon, in favor of the geologist Harrison Schmitt. Unlike Haise, however, Engle remained at NASA after completion of the ALT program and eventually ended up commanding two Shuttle missions in space.

I always felt bad for him for being bumped as LMP for 17. Joe was on the backup crew with Cernan and Evans for 14 and that was "his" seat (no disrespect meant for Schmitt). Joe being the true team player stayed on with NASA, also flew the ALTS and commanded two shuttle missions.

I like the fact that Joe flew the X-15 before joining NASA. According to Wikipedia: three of his 16 flights in the X-15 exceeded an altitude of 50 miles (80 km), qualifying him for USAF astronaut wings.

which we have done had the shuttle flown at its 100 flight per year schedule originally talked about. Oh yeah the shuttle is not very eco friendly.

Equals five orbiters, although Enterprise and its other associated boilerplates and test beds don't count.

But yeah, don't get me started on the shitty turnaround times, the rockets that aren't really reusable, the dozens of William Proxmire-mandated cuts which have ensured the deaths of fourteen people with more sure to follow.

Thanks to the Shuttle, the United States is now second in safety, reliability, successful flights to orbit, time in orbit, and any other measurable standard of comparison against the former Soviet space program, which is itself held together with bad plumbing and electrical tape.

And the piece of shit we're building to replace it is about the only system which has the potential to kill more astronauts, faster. We should be ashamed.

I thought Endeavour was not on the planning books until after Challenger was destroyed - that's why the 5 orbiter comment stood out to me (I do recall reading about plans to potentially retrofit Enterprise to flight worthiness, but that those plans were deemed to expensive).

Did you see where the first test of today of the Orion escape tower was apparently successful?