Fog shrouded Kennedy Space Center in Florida on the morning of April 12, 1981. Majestic great blue herons hunted breakfast in the shallow waters near Canaveral National Seashore, oblivious to the throngs of people that seemed to occupy every square inch of sand.

On pad 39-A, Navy Commander John Young, AE 52, strapped into his seat aboard the flight deck of Columbia, a new spacecraft that looked nothing like the familiar capsules used in previous flights. It wasn't. The vehicle, with its oversized fuselage and stubby wings, began the era of the space shuttle.

Young was a space veteran having already flown four times aboard Gemini and Apollo missions, including a moon walk in 1972. Bob Crippen, a Navy test pilot, would go on to command three future missions. But nothing either man had done or would do was quite like this.

Young and Crippen — there were no other crew members on this flight — were about to test the world's first reusable spacecraft, an orbiter that would launch like a rocket and land like a plane. Even the two solid rocket boosters would be reused, after being recovered in the ocean. Only the external fuel tank would burn up as it fell back to Earth.

As the giant countdown clock near the press site three miles away counted down the final seconds to launch, the sounds of motor-driven cameras began their "click-ztttt, click-zttt" cadence.

Seconds after 7 a.m., a wave of sound from the unmuffled boosters washed over the spectator site.

The shuttle climbed quickly, arcing out over the Atlantic.

About eight minutes later, Young and Crippen were orbiting Earth at more than 17,000 miles per hour.

To hear Young's account of the launch, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/sts1/index.html.

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