The Next 'Revolution' in Space

April 12, 2006 — -- Twenty-five years ago this morning, the Space Shuttle Columbia lifted off for the first time -- with such violence that it damaged the metal and concrete of its launch pad.

It was the first of 114 launches, and along the way there have been many such surprises. Some were pleasant, such as the spectacular images from the Hubble Space Telescope, which was launched and serviced by shuttle astronauts. Others -- the loss of the Columbia and Challenger crews -- were tragic.

Today in Houston and at other NASA centers, astronauts and engineers quietly marked the anniversary of the first shuttle flight, designated STS-1.

"Exploring space is a hazardous line of work, always has been and always will be," said John Young, the commander of that mission and a veteran of six space flights. "But if you're going to make progress in aerospace, you've got to accept some risk."

"The shuttle has carried more humans to orbit than any other vehicle," said shuttle program manager Wayne Hale. "It is a technological revolution of the first order."

April 12 is a fabled day in space history. It is also the 45th anniversary of the flight that made Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin the first man ever to fly in space.

He made one orbit in his Vostok 1 spacecraft. Decades later Russia released records that showed he'd come close to getting killed as he prepared to return to Earth.

But his flight -- seen as a challenge to the United States -- was greeted with a surge of energy in Washington. Only six weeks later, President Kennedy committed NASA to land astronauts on the moon by the end of the 1960s. It succeeded in 1969 with the Apollo 11 mission.

But then the astronauts came back -- to a planet with more immediate priorities. Under tremendous pressure from Washington to cut costs, NASA designed the shuttle as a compromise -- an attempt to make space flight affordable and routine by creating a reusable spacecraft.

In the end, NASA's current managers concede, it was neither. The shuttles have turned out to be expensive and delicate. In the three years since the Columbia tragedy, only one mission has been flown.