STS-5
"Columbia" landed on Runway 22 at Edwards Air Force Base on 16 November 1982, at 6:33 am PST, having traveled 2 million miles in 81 orbits during a mission that lasted 5 days, 2 hours, 14 minutes and 26 seconds. "Columbia" was returned to KSC on 22 November 1982. STS-5 was the first shuttle flight in which the crew did not wear pressure suits for the launch, reentry, and landing portions of the flight, similar to the Soviet Voskhod and Soyuz missions prior to the ill-fated Soyuz 11 mission in 1971.
The shuttle was formally declared "operational" after STS-4. However, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB), in its report on the loss with all crew aboard of "Columbia" during STS-107 in 2003, asserted that the orbiter should never have been considered operational and that, while not intrinsically unsafe, it was in fact an experimental vehicle. The CAIB's rationale was that civilian and military aircraft that are considered operational must have been tested and proven over thousands of safe flights in their final operational configurations, whereas the shuttle had conducted under 200 flights, with continuous modification. NASA operated the Space Shuttle as an experimental vehicle for the remainder of the program.
United States lightship Columbia (WLV-604)
Commissioned in 1951, "Columbia" was the fourth and final lightship stationed at the mouth of the Columbia River. Built by Rice Brothers Shipyard in Boothbay, Maine, "Columbia" was launched with her sister-ship, "Relief" (WLV-605). The new WLV-604 replaced the aging vessel LV-93, which had been in service on the Columbia River since 1939. The Columbia River lightships guided vessels across the Columbia River Bar and an area known as the Graveyard of the Pacific from 1892 until 1979. "Columbia" was the final lightship to be decommissioned on the U.S. West coast. She was replaced by an automated navigational buoy soon after. The buoy has since been retired.