Today marked the 40th anniversary of the launch of Columbia on the first mission of the Space Shuttle Program, STS-1. It’s a little hard for me to think that it was that along ago, or that the program would go on for just over 30 years, ending in July of 2011 after 135 missions. Of […]
Time to go back to the early days of the Space Shuttle program. 1980, in this case, when the first flight was still in the middle of a variety of delays. The Space Shuttle was basically ready, but as luck would have it one thing after another kept the vehicle grounded until April 12th, 1981, […]
6 Years ago today, the Space Shuttle Atlantis launched on STS-135, the final mission of the Space Shuttle program. I wrote an entry last year, but incidentally, for whatever reason, didn’t include launch video. No idea why, but I’m rectifying that now. The Final Liftoff of Atlantis The Space Shuttle is the most-flown American manned […]
On November 12th, 1981, the Space Shuttle Columbia was launched on the second flight of the Space Shuttle Program, a flight which also marks the first re-use of a crewed spacecraft – one of the key goals of the Shuttle Program. STS-2 marked the first use of the Remote Manipulator Arm (the “Canadarm”) , and […]
The Space Shuttle wasn’t just the NASA follow up to Apollo – oh no, it was intended to replace all expendable launch vehicles, both those in use by NASA for civilian payloads and military launches. The specifications of the payload bay and the overall design of the shuttle were driven by military payload requirements, namely […]
This video, which was shared in my post last year about Challenger, details the events of the disaster. It explains the root causes of the disaster and takes an extremely detailed look at the 73 second flight of Challenger, the development of the fire plume in the right SRB, and the eventual disintegration of the […]