{"id":539,"date":"2011-01-12T11:01:24","date_gmt":"2011-01-12T11:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress65\/?p=539"},"modified":"2011-01-12T11:01:24","modified_gmt":"2011-01-12T11:01:24","slug":"first-congressman-space-quarter-century-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/first-congressman-space-quarter-century-ago\/","title":{"rendered":"First Congressman in Space, a Quarter Century Ago"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twenty-five years ago today — January 12, 1986 — the Space Shuttle Columbia launched from Kennedy Space Center carrying into orbit the first member of U.S. House of Representatives to fly in space.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n(In-flight portrait of the STS-61C crew. NASA image.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\nThe entire STS-61C<\/a> crew consisted of astronauts Robert L. “Hoot” Gibson, Charles F. Bolden, Franklin R. Chang-Diaz, George D. \u201cPinky\u201d Nelson, Steve A. Hawley, and Robert J. Cenker, plus Congressman William C. Nelson. In addition to being the first time a sitting Representative flew in space, it was the first flight for Bolden, who is the current NASA Administrator, and for Chang-Diaz, the first Costa Rica-born astronaut.<\/p>\n

The crew deployed the SATCOM KU-1 communications satellite and conducted a number of different experiments. Their landing was originally moved up one day, then had to be delayed because of weather. <\/p>\n

The NASA mission summary doesn’t mention how much concern they had over seeing a piece of thermal insulation in orbit alongside the shuttle:<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n(One of the shuttle’s thermal insulation tiles photographed from inside<\/em> Columbia. NASA image.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\nI imagine that sort of thing, even if not uncommon, would increase the “pucker factor” when it came time for landing. But such is the life of the “steely-eyed missile men.”*<\/p>\n

___
\n*And women, of course, but there weren’t any on this mission.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>by <\/span>\"feather\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twenty-five years ago today — January 12, 1986 — the Space Shuttle Columbia launched from Kennedy Space Center carrying into orbit the first member of U.S. House of Representatives to fly in space. (In-flight portrait of the STS-61C crew. NASA image.) The entire STS-61C crew consisted of astronauts Robert L. \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[26,11,12],"class_list":["post-539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space","tag-launch","tag-space-history","tag-space-shuttle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}