Columbia, the first space bus

# the space bus Columbia was the first aircraft of the sortconstructed for NASA (space agency of the United States) to be launched in the space. Before it, a model for tests was constructed called Constitution initially. NASA decided to change its name for Enterprise, exactly name of the spaceship of seriado the North American Day in the Stars, after to receive thousand from letters of fans from the program.

# the inaugural flight of Columbia occurred in 12 of April of 1981.

# With it, had beginning the age of the ships of continuous use, that came to supplant the rockets, of very expensive construction.

# Its name is a homage to the boat that, in 1792, passed for dangerous sand banks in the sand mouth and arrived unharmed what it is today the British Columbia, in Canada.
# In 1992, Columbia suffered a reform that cost 70 million dollar. With the modifications, the ship gained a cabin new, lighter and that it used little electricity, beyond bigger protection against the heat in the wings.

# the last mission of Columbia had beginning in 16 of January of 2003. He was 28ª trip of the ship and 113ª mission of NASA with space buses.

# In this flight, was part of the Ilan crew Ramon, first Israeli astronaut to go for the space. It was son of a survivor of the concentration camp of Auschwitz. The other astronauts were Rick Douglas Husband, William C. McCool, Michael Anderson, Blair Laurel Clark, David Brown and Kalpana Chawla.

# Columbia blew up when the Texas (U.S.A.) in 01 of February of 2003 sobrevoava, shortly after to reentrar the atmosphere of the Land. When the accident occurred, the ship was the 21,2 a thousand kilometers for the moment, 60 kilometers of height and with 57 degrees of inclination. In the distance for the landing track, in Canaveral Handle, in the Flórida, it was of 2.254 kilometers of distance. The seven astronauts of the crew had died.

# Shortly after the tragedy, already had people offering destroços of the space bus in the site of auction eBay.