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The real "show stopper," of course, might have been the landing. But it was breathtakingly "nominal," NASA lingo for "perfect." Crossing the coast below Big Sur at Mach 7, seven times the speed of sound, or about 5,100 m.p.h., Crippen crowed: "What a way to come to California!" Young lost his cool only after he had artfully landed Columbia right on the runway's center line. Eager to make an exit, he urged Houston to get the reception crews to speed up their "sniffing" chores—ridding the ship of noxious gases with exhausts and fans. When he was finally allowed to emerge, 63 min. after touchdown, he bounded down the stairs, checked out the tiles and landing gear, then jubilantly jabbed the air with his fists. It was probably Young's most uncontrolled move of the entire flight.
Curiously, Young's and Crippen's heartbeat patterns reversed on takeoff and landing. Both are normally in the 60s. At launch Young's rose only to 85 beats a minute, while Crippen's soared to 135. Returning, Young's pulse rate zipped up to 130 as he flew the craft in. Crippen's stayed around 85.
To be sure, Young's racing pulse slowed down soon after landing—and the nation's is likely to do the same. Says Forrest Berghorn, a political scientist at the University of Kansas: "The American spirit is too self-centered to concern itself with this for very long. The space shuttle success is in a class with our hockey victory over Russia." That may be too harsh a judgment; of late there have been signs of a renewed popular interest in space. Yet even those who want a redoubled U.S. space effort doubt there will be a lasting effect from the flight unless a profound change of mood occurs in budget-minded Washington. Says Jerry Grey, public policy administrator for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics: "Right now, there is no real commitment to space, no strong proponent of it within the Administration."
There is no doubt of continued military interest in the shuttle. But in the realms of pure science and commercial enterprise, the future of the costly space shuttle seems far from assured.
In its struggle to get the shuttle launched, NASA has already been forced to drain funds from other areas, especially those concerned with the unmanned exploration of the solar system. To NASA's great embarrassment, it has had to drop out of a joint effort to position two satellites—one American, the other European—in great, looping orbits around the poles of the sun. These solar regions have never before been inspected by technically equipped robots from earth, and such satellites could help answer important questions about the behavior of our parent star: How does it affect terrestrial climate and weather? Is it warming up or cooling off?