I was looking around for some music on YouTube when I spotted this. It's live CBS News TV coverage of the first drop test and landing of the shuttle
Enterprise on August 12, 1977, complete with commercials.
To put things in perspective, this was 4 1/2 years after the last moon landing and two years since the last American had flown in space. And the first launch of
Columbia was nearly four years in the future. In those days, hitching rides from the Russians was not an option. In terms of American access to space, we were worse off then than now.
You gotta check this out. It's in two parts:
Space Shuttle Enterprise ALT1 (Part 1)Space Shuttle Enterprise ALT1 (Part 2)I remember watching these test flights on TV, along with the space launches of the 60s and 70s. I'd always wish the TV announcers would shut up so I could listen to the air-to-ground communications. Even if I didn't always understand what they were talking about, I wanted to hear them rather than the TV guys jabbering away.