Columbia (OV-102)
From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference
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The Columbia (OV-102) was a Human spacecraft in operation in the 20th century. This spacecraft flew many missions for NASA's Space Shuttle program. One of these missions, STS-107, was a testbed for micro-gravity experiments and marked for the first time in Earth history that an Israeli flew into space. The astronauts selected for this mission were Husband, McCool, Brown, Chawla, Anderson, Clark, and Ramon. The mission insignia for this mission was later seen, in 2143, along with other NASA mission insignias, in the 602 Club. (ENT: "First Flight").
[edit] Background
The first flight of the Columbia, and of the Space Shuttle Program, in 1981 is one of the real world events referenced in the Star Trek Chronology. Tragically, the Columbia and her crew were lost during re-entry twenty-two years later on mission STS-107. The Columbia was named after a Boston sloop famed for its exploration of the Pacific Northwest and the command module of Apollo 11.
