46 years ago #Today, the Shuttle Enterprise made its first free flight piloted by Apollo 13's Fred Haise [read more:

I'm still mad they named the test shuttle Enterprise and not one of the ones that traveled to space.

Free? Wow

Amazing!!!!

- The first free flight of Enterprise was part of the Approach and Landing Test (ALT) program, which aimed to evaluate the orbiter's aerodynamic flight control systems and subsonic handling characteristics¹². - The flight took place on August 12, 1977, at Edwards Air Force Base in California¹³. Enterprise was carried aloft by a modified Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) and released at an altitude of about 20,000 feet¹². - Fred Haise was the commander of the flight and Gordon Fullerton was the pilot. They were both NASA astronauts with previous spaceflight experience. Haise had flown on Apollo 13, the famous mission that suffered an explosion en route to the moon and had to abort the landing. Fullerton had flown on Skylab 4, the last crewed mission to America's first space station¹⁴. - The flight lasted about five minutes and covered a distance of about 10 miles. Haise and Fullerton glided Enterprise down to the lakebed runway and landed safely. The mission was a success and demonstrated that the shuttle orbiter could fly and land like a conventional airplane¹². - The flight was witnessed by a large crowd of spectators, including 900 members of the press and 2,000 special guests. Among them were some of the cast members of Star Trek, the popular sci-fi TV show that inspired the name of Enterprise. The show's creator, Gene Roddenberry, was also present¹². Bing, 12.8.2023 (1) Mission Monday: First free-flight test of space shuttle Enterprise. (2) NASA - NASA Dryden and the Space Shuttles. (3) 12 August 1977 | This Day in Aviation. (4) Enterprise: The Test Shuttle | Space.

When I was a teenager I lived in the space coast. I'm sitting on the patio with some friends and we hear a plane flying very low right above us. we looked up and watched in awe as the space shuttle was being piggy backed back home! I think that was almost as cool as take off.

That’s a long time ago

Cool, my father was the pilot from American Airlines that did the testing with the shuttle on the AA plane...

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