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Not since the first landing of men on the moon had the nation shown such enthusiastic interest in space. Teachers interrupted classes so youngsters could see the landing. Work in offices and factories virtually ceased. Hearing that Columbia was about to touch down, a fitter in a Manhattan men's shop dashed off to the nearest TV set, leaving a customer standing before a mirror all pinned up in an unfinished suit. The Atlanta Constitution's resident cartoonist, Baldy, showed a beaming Uncle Sam emerging out of the shuttle with his arms raised high like a victorious boxer's. Though some editorial writers expressed discomfort about the shuttle's military role, others dismissed such fears. Commented the Chicago Tribune: "It appears we will get into a space arms race whether we like it or not . . . So fly aloft, Columbia!; deliver your laser guns and satellite busters and spy eyes. Build your battlestars. May the Force be with us."
All but forgotten amid America's sudden love affair with the shuttle were its $9.9 billion price tag (at a 30% cost overrun), all those loose tiles, the exploding engines, even the last-minute computer failure, to say nothing of the inevitable jokes about America's "space lemon" and "flying brickyard." Could past scorn actually have increased the passion of this new embrace? The shuttle had become a kind of technological Rocky, the bum who perseveres to the end, the underdog who finally wins. Columbia's success, explained Milwaukee Sociologist Wayne Youngquist, "ties in with so many of our cultural themes. It's Horatio Alger. It's The Little Engine That Could."
Perhaps. But the infatuation also had a boisterous, abrasive, decidedly chauvinistic tone. Out in the desert, many among the nearly one-quarter of a million people who had gathered to welcome the shuttle home sported T shirts emblazoned EAT YOUR HEARTS OUT, RUSSIANS. In a New York bar, after watching the landing, a patron boasted: "The French and the Brits can't do anything like that. Neither can the Russkis."
The French and the British, not to mention the Germans and Japanese, were not about to disagree. In London, the mass-circulation dailies exploded in a chorus of adulation. FANTASTIC! exclaimed the Daily Mail, wow! trumpeted Rupert Murdoch's Sun. Most Britons, rather than showing concern over the shuttle's military potential, seemed to welcome it. Said the London Times: "The conquest of space is both a necessary expression of man's drive to explore and understand his environment and a military requirement if the West is not to be dominated by Soviet activity in space."