Space Shuttle Columbia: Aiming High in '81

Like the U.S., the space shuttle Columbia is looking up as the year begins

Like the U.S., the space shuttle Columbia is looking up as the year begins

It was mighty considerate of NASA to roll out Columbia a full three months before it shoots into the future. Everyone needs a lift in January, and here, magically, comes this stark quartet of domes and turrets rising like a restored castle out of the Florida flats. The timing is impeccable. As the Reagan Administration lumbers into place, so too this other new machine—huge, untried, ambitious (albeit with limited maneuverability); designed to aid national defense, to boost Big Business, to restore U.S. eminence in a domain once...

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