In article , says...

On 12/27/2015 8:25 PM, Alain Fournier wrote:

I was really thrilled by the recovery of the Falcon 9 first stage last
week. I thought it was the most exciting launch since the first launch
of the Space Shuttle Columbia.


I was AT the Columbia launch and witnessed it first hand. For me, this
was every bit as exciting, perhaps even more so. But the suspense was
not as long, because at the time of Columbia there was a real concern
about the adhesive used for the tiles and whether it was up to the task.
I remember hearing back then a lot of talk about the "zipper effect"
that might doom the shuttle. Quite a contrast from then 1980 to 2003.

With the shuttle, NASA designed the thing to only fly with people on
board, so its first test flight was manned by Crippen and Young (if
memory serves). With Orion, it looks like we'll get a couple of
unmanned test flights (including the development flight that was on
Delta IV).

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer