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BILL HARWOOD: I think as long as you're strapping people to rocket ships

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and accelerating them to five miles a second in eight minutes,

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that is inherently exciting

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and there'll always be people who want to come cover that,

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both because it's a significant technology story, it's a political story,

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it's a human interest story, it's all of those things.

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Space really wraps that up into one big ball and it's a lot of fun to cover.

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TODD HALVORSON: In my mind, covering the space program

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is probably the best job in journalism

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and covering the explorers of our generation is just a compelling

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and wonderful thing to be able to do.

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JAY BARBREE: Why I want to cover it - it is so necessary for the advancement

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of the human race. We only advance because we continue to learn.

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NARRATOR: For millions of people in the United States and around the world,

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the space shuttle experience was seen on television,

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heard on the radio or read in a newspaper.

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Increasingly, it's read about in short updates on Internet blogs or in longer discussions

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on cable news stations.

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The story they receive is relayed through the senses of reporters, correspondents

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and editors who spent decades learning the intricacies of one of the most technical

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operations humankind has devised.

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BILL HARWOOD: It was two years down here as a full-time space reporter

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before I even felt remotely comfortable covering the shuttle,

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felt like I really understood what was going on to any degree at all

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and I think translating that to the public, being able to convey that complexity translated

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into simpler terms and do it well is an enormous challenge and I think it is,

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it still is today.

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NARRATOR: Reporters got their first taste of the Space Shuttle Program when

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Columbia launched in 1981.

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HUGH HARRIS: For the first launch there was more than 2,000 reporters and probably

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95 percent of them had never seen a rocket, so we had a real learning experience to try

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and put them through.

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NARRATOR: Thousands of people lined the beaches and riverfronts around

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Kennedy Space Center to witness that first launch in person.

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It was the first time a spacecraft with wings launched, and it came more than six years

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after the last time astronauts flew into space.

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CRAIG COUVALT: We were also very worried at the time because it was an extremely

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dangerous flight test mission.

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JAY BARBREE: There was a lot of questions, because, first of all,

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it was really advanced.

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HUGH HARRIS: Until it's in orbit, really, you don't breathe a lot.

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I mean, you're listening very intently to the information that's coming in and making sure

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everything is going well and of course everything went very, very well.

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NARRATOR: Two days later, on the West Coast of America, thousands more came out

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to Edwards Air Force Base in California to see Columbia return on wings

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instead of parachutes.

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BOB CRIPPEN: I remember when John Young and I were coming in for a landing

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at Edwards Air Force and he was banking left and we looked down out on the lake bed

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there and there were thousands of people that we could see.

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We were about 35 . . . 40,000 feet at that particular point,

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but I said, 'Look at all those folks out there! They came out to see us land!'

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NARRATOR: During the next three decades, the news media would transfer

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the excitement, drama and tragedy of NASA's space exploration to

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throngs of viewers and readers.

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BILL HARWOOD: I think the most challenging aspect of the job is the complexity

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of the hardware and understanding how space missions are carried out.

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TODD HALVORSON: I think a large part of our job is translating NASA into English.

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There's a lot of jargon, there are a lot of acronyms, and we have to figure out a way to

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explain highly technical material in a way that your average newspaper reader

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is going to understand.

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COUNTDOWN COMMENTATOR: Four

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Three

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Two

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One

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And liftoff!

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Liftoff of the 25th space shuttle mission and it has cleared the tower .

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BILL HARWOOD: Before Challenger, you realized this was a dangerous business,

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but you didn't really believe it.

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NARRATOR: Reporters have also witnessed two space shuttle accidents firsthand

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and relayed it to their audience. Challenger's launch in January 1986.

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CAPCOM: Columbia, Houston, comm check.

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Columbia, Houston, UHF comm check.

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NARRATOR: and Columbia's breakup during re-entry in February 2003.

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TODD HALVORSON: I'll always remember I saw this little girl in the parking lot

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of the Cocoa Beach Holiday Inn and she just pointed up at that conflagration in the sky

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and said, "The teacher's up there. The teacher's up there." And that sticks with you.

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BILL HARWOOD: As someone watching the shuttle take off and land,

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and gets to know these people, they were both gut-wrenching.

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The first time, Challenger, you know you're looking at that fireball in the sky,

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you know you're watching seven people give their lives for something they believe in.

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That's gut-wrenching. And the same with Columbia.

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The loss of life of course is the number one thing that sticks with you.

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And you can't, never get over that and you'll always put yourself in the family's shoes

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and friends and you feel the same sympathy anybody in the public would feel.

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TODD HALVORSON: Some crews you get to know very well.

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When you see the shuttle launch and you have friends on board and people that you've

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interacted with for a period of time in the lead-up to launch, it really makes a difference

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because you know there are men and women flying on board that have families,

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that have children, and it makes it all that much more real.

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NARRATOR: The news media would see its own numbers grow and adjust to new forms

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of communication including the advent of news channels and the revolution

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of the Internet with its own specialized brand of reporting.

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BILL HARWOOD: When I first came down for my college newspaper

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I had a manual typewriter and you'd read the story to an editor and you were writing for

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the next day's newspaper and there was this huge delay between when you did a story

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and when it actually showed up in print.

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And as the shuttle program evolved, cable news networks began and all the sudden

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you evolved into this 24-hour news cycle.

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TODD HALVORSON: The days of going out and covering a launch and writing a story

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for the next day's newspaper are gone. We're finding ourselves being kind of,

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I play a TV reporter on the internet.

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BILL HARWOOD: For the space enthusiast, for someone who is already interested

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in this and would follow it anyway, even if it was by magazine or whatever,

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it's a great thing for them because with all the blogs that are out there

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and the Web presence of magazines, newspapers, television, you can get an

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enormous amount of information that would have been much more difficult to get before.

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JAY BARBREE: Because they can ask questions, they can participate,

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they can get into it.

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NARRATOR: NASA also began broadcasting on its own network during the

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shuttle program, originally called NASA Select, now called NASA TV.

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JAY BARBREE: Believe me when I started back in the business, radio was the big thing, not TV.

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TV was trying to catch up with what radio was so I've seen it all change

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LISA MALONE: People are very curious about what's going on and that's a good thing

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from a public outreach standpoint, it's really good to have that kind of interest

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in our launches here.

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NARRATOR: Although they found increasingly advanced ways to cover the shuttle,

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the shuttle itself remained the center of attention, and a touchstone

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for many societal changes, too.

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CRAIG COVAULT: The same shuttle orbiters were used to assemble the

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International Space Station that is made up totally of international partners

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who in the last 60 years were at war with each other.

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Bitter enemies of the United States when our parents grew up, now getting together on

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the space shuttle and building almost a million-pound facility in orbit.

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NARRATOR: Space exploration is expected to remain a focal point for news media

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just as it has in the past.

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JAY BARBREE: I think all coverage will get more personal to the audience.

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I think people will demand that they get the freshest and the latest

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and that they will be able to participate and you can do that on the Internet.

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And I think it's going to get more and more and more that way.

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