Moonwalker Sees Columbia Lift Off Neil Armstrong At Center As Crew Starts ‘Boring’ Research Mission

With the first man to walk on the moon watching, the crew of the space shuttle Columbia on Friday took a giant leap into orbit - and out of the public’s mind.

Delayed 20 minutes because of minor technical problems, Columbia shot through the sunny sky as Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong attended his first shuttle launch. Armstrong did not give any interviews.

Although Armstrong captivated the public in 1969 with his walk on the moon, the crew he saw go into space will barely be noticed while they are up there, NASA officials conceded.

It’s time for nearly 16 days of basic lab research that even the most ardent space experts agree is dull. Astronauts will try to find out how the lack of gravity changes flames, metals, the cooling process, plants and disease cells.

“Most of the stuff we do is boring” to watch, said Ed Gabris, NASA’s director of commercial research. “But we’re working on things that help everyday man.”

One of the experiments that astronaut Greg Linteris will begin this morning is grow protein crystals of a disease called Chagas. This will help scientists better understand how to combat the disease.

Chagas is a debilitating and often fatal illness caused by bites from beetles that live in clay flooring. More than 24 million people in Central and South America have the disease, Gabris said.

The main focus of the mission is to set more than 200 fires to better understand combustion and how to make it more efficient on Earth. Some experts believe that if internal combustion engines burn fuel even slightly more efficiently, that would save $1.6 billion a year in this country.

A capacity crowd of 11,000 people jammed into Kennedy Space Center for the launch, which coincided with college spring break.