STS-1 (Columbia)

On April 12, 1981 — twenty years to the day after Gagarin’s flight — John Young and Bob Crippen rode the Space Shuttle Columbia into orbit on the boldest test flight in NASA history: the first time astronauts flew a vehicle that had never been launched uncrewed. Columbia’s two-day shakedown proved the world’s first reusable orbital spacecraft could reach orbit and return.

The landing at Edwards Air Force Base, gliding home on delta wings to a runway rather than parachuting into the ocean, redefined what returning from space looked like. Over the next 30 years the shuttle fleet would launch satellites and space telescopes, build the International Space Station, and carry 355 people to orbit — an era that began with STS-1’s calculated gamble.