JSC Celebrates 40 Years of Human Space Flight . Space Shuttle . ... Maneuvering through space and circling the Earth 36 times, astronauts John Young, commander, and Robert Crippen, pilot, tested its systems, then landed like an airplane on schedule two days, six hours, 20 minutes and 52 seconds later. ... While the shuttle system was something new and different, development could now draw upon a reservoir of aerospace technology, which was virtually nonexistent a decade earlier. ...