At exactly 7:00am ET, on April 12, 1981, NASA launched the Space Shuttle for the first time with John Young and Robert Crippen at the controls of the orbiter Columbia. The 36-orbit, 933,757-mile-long flight lasted 2 days, 6 hours, 20 minutes and 32 seconds.

At the rear of Columbia's fuselage were two pods to house the orbital maneuvering (OMS) and reaction control (RCS) systems. Each pod measured 21.8 feet long and 11.37 feet wide at its aft and 8.41 feet wide at its forward end. The pods' skin panels were constructed from a graphite epoxy honeycomb sandwich.

This acrylic, a memento distributed to employees of the McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Company, St. Louis Division, displays a section of OMS/RCS pod skin that was removed from Columbia after its maiden flight. It was the former property of MDAC's Program Manager for the Space Shuttle's Orbital Maneuvering System.