Space Shuttle Enterprise - ALT-1 (Full Free Flight)

Space Shuttle Enterprise - ALT- 1 (Complete Free Flight)

August 12th 1977 - Onboard are astronauts Fred Haise and Gordon Fullerton.

Here is the first free flight of Space Shuttle Enterprise with the NASA commentary added. I have been searching for the audio of this test flight for 30 odd years and, at last, here it is. It has been very satisfying to finally put this all together. Another "space first" for me. For those of you who have always wanted to see it like this (ie with no TV commentators), I hope you enjoy the 10 minutes or so that will whisk you back to a simpler, but perhaps , what seemed a more futuristic age...

Video starts 2 minutes before pushover and lasts through wheels stop.

The "audio find" was on a cassette tape and is, I believe, one of the tapes JSC media department used to provide free on receipt of a blank cassette tape back in the 70s and 80s. Some of the audio seems "clipped" - but to those that remember, that was the way these types of tapes were recorded - the term used was "voxed" - which we all believed at the time meant some of the audio sounds like on this audio...slightly clipped, as if it was a voice activated recording.

Video/photos/patches and audio are courtesy NASA.