Robert Crippen
Robert Crippen
Robert Laurel "Bob" Crippen,, is a retired American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, aerospace engineer, and former astronaut for the United States Department of Defense and for NASA. He was the Pilot of the first Space Shuttle flight and flew three more missions as Commander. Crippen received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAstronaut
Date of Birth11 September 1937
CountryUnited States of America
american-astronaut came circling coming lake land pattern
For landing, we came in over Edwards about 40,000 feet. We set up for a big circling pattern coming in to land down on the lake bed.
american-astronaut certainly love moon shuttle truly vehicle
I would truly love to see us go back to the Moon and on to Mars; certainly the shuttle is not the right vehicle to make that happen.
crew
The nature of the shuttle was, we couldn't put a crew escape system in it.
mystery crew selection
Selection of crews is always been somewhat of a mystery.
orbit earth speed
Looking down at the Earth, you started to pick up a sense of speed much more than I had noticed on orbit.
military half astronaut
I was selected to be an astronaut on a military program called the Manned Orbiting Laboratory back in '67. That program got cancelled in '69 and NASA ended up taking half of us.
opportunity space tests
Having the opportunity to fly the first flight of something like a space shuttle was the ultimate test flight.
dirty sleep camping
Living inside the shuttle was a little like camping out. We ended up sleeping in our seats. You had to pay attention to housekeeping, not get things too dirty.
half world orbit
You're going very fast when you're on orbit, going around the world once every hour and a half.