The VERY FIRST Shuttle Launch!

April is the month of Space Science anniversaries!  In addition to NASA naming the first American astronauts on April 9, 1959 and Yuri Gagarin’s first space Flight on April 12, 1961, today marks the 35th anniversary of the very first space Shuttle flight, STS-1.  Lifting off at 12:00:04 UTC on the twentieth anniversary of Gagarin’s historic flight,  Commander John W. Young and Pilot Robert L. Crippen would spend two days in space on the very first flight of the Space Transportation System.  When designing and naming the Shuttle program, NASA was looking for a word to signify reliability, cost savings and re-usability.  NASA needed words to make rocket flight seem routine, like a shuttle bus.  The noun shuttle entered English first, in the mid-14th century to signify a weaving tool, from Old English scytel meaning a dart or arrow.  A hundred years later the verb shuttle arrived meaning to move back and forth quickly or to move rapidly to and fro, no doubt taken from the speedy action of the shuttle in use during weaving.  It did not acquire the modern sense of to move via a shuttle service until the advent of buses and public transportation.  NASA began using the word around 1969 as they began working on the Shuttle program.  Interestingly, the word rocket also derives from weaving:  the word rocket entered English in 1610 from the Italian word rocchetto, meaning a bobbin or spool head.  The Italian root probably derived from a Germanic root such as rocko with the same meaning.  The word was first used in English to describe a device propelled by a rocket engine in 1919.

Image of the STS-1 Immediately before Launch and crew courtesy NASA.