CRIPPEN, ROBERT LAUREL

born Sept. 11, 1937, Beaumont, Texas, U.S. U.S. astronaut who served as pilot on the first U.S. space shuttle orbital flight. Crippen graduated from the University of Texas, Austin, with a degree in aerospace engineering in 1960. He entered the U.S. Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory program in 1966 and transferred to the astronaut corps in 1969. He was named commander of the Skylab Medical Experiments Altitude Test several years later and was a member of the support crews for Skylab 2, 3, and 4 and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. Manned by Crippen and John W. Young, the shuttle Columbia, the world's first reusable spacecraft, was launched on April 12, 1981. The two astronauts landed the airplane-like craft on April 14, after having orbited the Earth 36 times. Crippen later commanded the second flight of the space shuttle Challenger. This flight (June 1824, 1983) saw the first American woman in space, Sally K. Ride, and made Crippen the first to fly in two shuttle missions.