Edwards Air Force Base 32 Years Ago

This Independence Day brings to mind another Independence Day that took place 32 years ago.

On July 4, 1982, the end of STS-4 with Space Shuttle Columbia took place at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert in California. This marked the end of the test program for the shuttle and it was declared operational.

This had to be the most memorable Fourth of July in my life as Paul Evans and I joined about a half a million other spectators at Edwards to watch the shuttle landing and the flyover of Space Shuttle Challenger.
President and Mrs. Ronald Reagan also were on hand for the shuttle landing.

Our Fourth of July celebrating began the night before at Dodger Stadium as Paul and I attended that game and saw Fernando Valenzuela pitch a 5-4 victory over the Houston Astros. Following the game, the stadium had a great fireworks display.

Above, the crowd for the Columbia landing. I'm somewhere in there.

After the fireworks show, we drove to Edwards Air Force Base to view the Columbia landing the next morning. Quite a number of people were already at Edwards. At that time, I had a 1980 Toyota pick-up with a camper shell. We were fully stocked with drinks and munchies for the night. It was a party atmosphere at Edwards, so neither of us got much, if any sleep that night even though I had the camper section to myself and Paul had the cab section to himself. There was just too much partying going on around us.

Early the next morning, we found more people had come in to add to the crowd numbers. There were also souvenir and food vendors selling their goods.

Little did we know that the two space shuttles we saw that day, Columbia and Challenger, would both meet tragic fates. But that day at Edwards Air Force Base was a joyous one. President Reagan was right, this event sure did beat firecrackers for the Fourth of July.