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 life sciences, to name a few. Spacelab hardware also supported missions such as Hubble (HST) servicing and space station resupply. STS-2 and STS-3 provided testing, and the first full mission was Spacelab-1 (STS-9) launched on November 28, 1983. Spacelab formally began in 1973, after a meeting in Brussels, Belgium, by European heads of state. Within the decade, Spacelab went into orbit and provided Europe and the United States with an orbital workshop and hardware system. International cooperation, science, and exploration were realized on Spacelab. The Shuttle was one of the earliest craft to use a computerized fly-by-wire digital flight control