Robert Laurel Crippen is an American retired naval officer and aviator, test pilot, aerospace engineer, and retired astronaut. He traveled into space four times: as pilot of STS-1 in April 1981, the first Space Shuttle mission; and as commander of STS-7 in June 1983, STS-41-C in April 1984, and STS-41-G in October 1984. He was also a part of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL), Skylab Medical Experiment Altitude Test (SMEAT), ASTP support crew member, and the Approach and Landing Tests (ALT) for the Space Shuttle.
Crippen in 1979
Crippen with a MOL spacesuit
John Young and Crippen suiting up for the STS-1 mission.
Sign of Crippen Elementary School in Porter, Texas, named after Robert Crippen
STS-1 was the first orbital spaceflight of NASA's Space Shuttle program. The first orbiter, Columbia, launched on April 12, 1981, and returned on April 14, 1981, 54.5 hours later, having orbited the Earth 37 times. Columbia carried a crew of two—mission commander John W. Young and pilot Robert L. Crippen. It was the first American crewed space flight since the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) in 1975. STS-1 was also the maiden test flight of a new American spacecraft to carry a crew, though it was preceded by atmospheric testing (ALT) of the orbiter and ground testing of the Space Shuttle system.
The launch of STS-1, April 12, 1981
Young and CrippenSpace Shuttle program← Approach and Landing Tests (ALT)STS-2 →
The external tank is released from the Space Shuttle orbiter.
STS-1 crew in Space Shuttle Columbia's cabin. This is a view of training in 1980 in the Orbiter Processing Facility.