Bill Nelson Nelson was a Payload Specialist on 's STS-61-C mission from January 12 to 18, 1986. The Space Shuttle "Columbia" landed at Edwards AFB at 5:59 a.m. PST, on January 18. The mission's elapsed time was 6 days, 2 hours, 45 minutes, and 51 seconds. This flight was the last successful space shuttle flight prior to the "Challenger" accident, which occurred only ten days after the return of the "Columbia". In 1988, Nelson published a book about his space flight experience entitled "Mission: An American Congressman's Voyage to Space". In 1972, Nelson was elected to the Florida House of Representatives as
Space Shuttle design process refurbishment, and the agency studied resupplying the satellite in space. The Air Force planned on having its own fleet of shuttles, and re-built a separate launch facility originally derived from the canceled Manned Orbiting Laboratory program at Vandenberg called Space Launch Complex Six (SLC-6). However, for various reasons, due in large part to the loss of the space shuttle "Challenger" on January 28, 1986, work on SLC-6 was eventually discontinued with no shuttle launches from that location ever taking place. SLC-6 was eventually used for launching the Lockheed Martin-built Athena expendable launch vehicles, which included the successful IKONOS commercial Earth