Space Shuttle Columbia: Aiming High in '81

Like the U.S., the space shuttle Columbia is looking up as the year begins

It was mighty considerate of NASA to roll out Columbia a full three months before it shoots into the future. Everyone needs a lift in January, and here, magically, comes this stark quartet of domes and turrets rising like a restored castle out of the Florida flats. The timing is impeccable. As the Reagan Administration lumbers into place, so too this other new machine—huge, untried, ambitious (albeit with limited maneuverability); designed to aid national defense, to boost Big Business, to restore U.S. eminence in a domain once...