That fancy patch you see above is to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Space Shuttle program and, sadly, its coming retirement.

On the morning of April 12, 1981, the shuttle Columbia, strapped to an enormous external fuel tank and a pair of solid rocket boosters, lifted off on its maiden voyage–and launched a new era in the Space Age. Never before had there been a spacecraft that could be used over and over again, that could land on Earth like an airplane–a glider, specifically.

That flight lasted 2 days, 6 hours, 20 minutes, and 53 seconds, in which time Columbia traveled 1.07 million miles, reaching an orbital altitude of 166 nautical miles. The two-man crew consisted of shuttle commander John Young and pilot Robert Crippen.

To date, the five spacecraft in the shuttle fleet have conducted more than 130 missions and traveled a cumulative half-billion miles–that’s a lot of commuting into Earth’s orbit and back.

• STS 1 Historical Press Kit (PDF)
• NASA’s Space Shuttle section
• When the space shuttle was new (photos)

Informative infographic below the cut.
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