Tag Archives: space shuttle
The definition of a space shuttle
For those who are just coming into adulthood and anyone else coming into awareness of the first moon landing, they will obviously be doing so after the fact and getting most of their information from secondhand sources. They also might tend to judge historical events by modern terms, or at the very least, think in anachronistic terms when it comes to prior aeronautic endeavors. In particular, the supposition might be made by those individuals that the space shuttle program was always in effect since the first rocket NASA sent into space. Nevertheless, this line of thinking would be erroneous. Manned space shuttle missions did not start until the 1980′s, and so distinctions must be made between the spacecraft of the past and the forms of space travel of newer generations, especially with NASA’s announcement that 2010 would mark the last year that any space shuttle missions would take place. Thus, in looking both forward and back, we must consult our dictionaries and other reference books as to what differentiates the soon-to-be outmoded shuttle technology of today from more general rocket technology as interpreted by scientists and romanticizing writers alike. One element of a rocket that may cause it to be … Continue reading
The legacy of the space shuttle program
While many instances of NASA launch may be immediately memorable to the American citizen who has lived through the Space Race and into the modern age, one of the most prominent would have to be the Apollo missions designed for lunar landing and analysis. However, in terms of being a space shuttle launch, to insist that, say, the Apollo 13 mission was just that would be to commit an error. While we might think the terms interchangeable after almost 30 years of manned space shuttle launch events – after all, time may cause one to forget – not every rocket launched by NASA has been a space shuttle. In fact, the first manned space shuttle did not take off until the 1980′s, well after Neil Armstrong’s world-famous romp on the surface of the moon. The space shuttle program is merely a subcategory of the general NASA launch heading. Including non-operational flights, the space shuttle program has been in gear for even longer than 30 years. Using the Enterprise model of orbiter, tests were conducted in the late 70′s to get a feel for how the space shuttle performed when attached to a space shuttle carrier and later in missions of … Continue reading