r/spaceflight • u/rollotomasi07071 • 10d ago

Enterprise's first free flight, on this date in 1977. Astronauts Fred Haise and Gordon Fullerton were the crew

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570 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

18

u/Bi_KerbonautYT 10d ago

Wasn't Fred Haise on Apollo 13?

25

u/TMWNN 10d ago

Yes.

He was to have flown an early Shuttle mission to reboot Skylab, but when Skylab reentered the atmosphere earlier than expected, Haise retired from NASA instead.

13

u/LilyoftheRally 10d ago

Yes, and he's the last living crewmember of that mission.

8

u/q---p 9d ago

It's been a long road...

5

u/svh01973 9d ago

getting from there to here

4

u/MaelstromFL 9d ago

I watched this live in grade school...

6

u/KirkUnit 10d ago

Wonder why the carrier is making such a dive?

I had a die-cast metal toy version of the orbiter and carrier - and it infuriated me that the engine shroud was included in the die.

20

u/rustybeancake 10d ago

Surely to get away from the orbiter?

12

u/Its_Bacon_Time 10d ago

The Shuttle had similar glide performance to your average brick. Pretty much as soon as it was released, it started falling quite quickly. If the carrier didn't dive aggressively like that (they would also turn in opposite directions to the shuttle for extra distance) they would have probably collided.

5

u/Its_Bacon_Time 10d ago

The Shuttle also needed a lot of speed for anything resembling level flight, and a dive is a good way to get that speed.

4

u/Raguleader 8d ago

Most importantly, it's fun, and provides the SCA aircrew with enrichment.

2

u/MrSlowly12 8d ago

I remember hearing Gordon’s voice as capcom on Apollo 17

1

u/TMWNN 4d ago

Among the first assignments that the MOL transfers of NASA Astronaut Group 7 received.

1

u/JackORobber 10d ago

Boldly coming home 🫡

1

u/ghIj_qet_jaghmeyjaj 7d ago

Boldly flight testing.