STS-1 Launch, SRB separation, 31 years ago.

On April 12, 1981, astronauts John Young and Bob Crippen launched into space on space shuttle Columbia on the STS-1 mission - NASA’s first mission aboard a reusable spacecraft. STS-1 was NASA’s first manned mission since the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975. In this image, the two solid rocket boosters are aglow after being jettisoned.

Image Credit: NASA

An aerial view of the rocket booster-mounted Columbia space shuttle being moved by a mobile launcher platform. Photo: AFSC. Location: Cape Canaveral. Date:11/23/1981.

via defenseimagery.mil

[editor’s note: I think the date given above is inaccurate, STS-1 was launched on April 12, 1981, STS-2 was launched on Nov. 12, 1981, correct me if I am wrong]

Solid-rocket booster parachute. In: National Geographic, March 1981.

Space Shuttle Enterprise in 1983 when a NASA delegation and the Enterprise mounted on a Boeing 747 visited the airport Cologne/Bonn in Germany. The Cologne/Bonn airport served as one of 19 non-american abort landing sites throughout the shuttle program.

Photo by Frank Kehren

Space Shuttle “Enterprise” mounted on a Boeing 747 at  Cologne-Bonn airport, May 1983. German postcard.

The Great Partner Ship. Rockwell, Boeing, Martin Marietta, United, United Technologies joint ad in Aviation Week & Space Technology, July 11, 1983.

A replica of the space shuttle covered with North Korean flags and markings, on display at the Children’s Palace in the North Korea capital Pyongyang, February 2008.

The North Korean space shuttle rocks!

via Life

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(photo: me)