STS-135 video: Resupply pod hoisted from Atlantis’ bay

It was 1986 and the U.S. Air Force was on the cusp of something unprecedented in human spaceflight — launching a space shuttle crew from California and paving the way for people to fly true polar missions.

Veteran CBS News correspondent Bruce Hall was not on the air when the shuttle Challenger blasted off 30 years ago Thursday. It was, after all, the 25th shuttle flight, the first of 16 planned for 1986, and news agencies were backing off expensive, remote coverage of what increasingly appeared to be a routine event.

Navigating the 48-mile Panama Canal that slices through the isthmus, the final shipment of a space shuttle external fuel tank emerged into the Pacific for a three-week trek to California.