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Shuttle Facts and History

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Shuttles are History, But Not Forgotten

Well, shuttle Atlantis has roared into history. And, I find myself, like all the other folks who have watched her lift off, in the position of looking back at 30 years of shuttle missions.

Atlantis on the pad, the day before her final launch. Copyright Carolyn Collins Petersen.

Is this how historians feel as they sift throughmillions of facts about momentous happenings in history? If so, it’s a weird feeling, because as I read through all the facts and figures about the last 30 years of shuttle launches, it does very much feel like the end of a momentous era in the U.S. Space Program.

I’ve been watching shuttle launches for three decades, and it never occurred to me that they’d ever come to an end. Yet, here we are, getting ready for that final launch of space shuttle Atlantis. And, I’ve been doing a little sifting around, watching old launch videos, reading about the accomplishments of the shuttles and their crews, and finding out some really cool and interesting things about these magnificent flying machines.

Did you know that shuttle Atlantis has flown more than 120 million miles in space – and all those before this final mission? She has orbited Earth more than 4,600 times. By the time she comes home from her final trip, Atlantis will have traveled a distance equivalent to 521 times the distance between the Earth and Moon.

Atlantis is the most lightweight of the space shuttle fleet, at 151,315 pounds. Space shuttle Endeavour was three pounds heavier. Every shuttle that left the launch pad had to haul a similar amount of weight plus a payload, pushing against and overcoming the pull of Earth’s gravity to get to space.

Here’s an oddly touching fact: Atlantis is going to space with a man’s wedding ring lost somewhere in her aft crew compartment. According to a report on NASASpaceflight.com, the ring was lost during the servicing flow for the orbiter’s last flight. The report concludes by saying, “While the owner of the ring may have received an ear-bashing from his wife, the engineer can look forward to proudly announcing he was reunited with the space flown ring by Atlantis when she returns to her Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF)… providing she doesn’t take the opportunity to propose to another vehicle whilst on orbit.”

Humans like to give nicknames to the technological marvels they work on. I used to have a sporty little car that I named Tezcatlipoca because it was sleek and black, just like the Aztec jaguar god for which it was named. Well, things are no different for the space shuttles. The people who readied Atlantis for her missions nicknamed the shuttle “Britney”, earned because of her diva-like tendencies during mission preparations.

All of the shuttles have carried scientific/technological payloads. These ranged from experiments in life sciences, materials science, Earth observing studies, astronomy, and classified Department of Defense projects. Atlantis delivered the Magellan spacecraft to Earth orbit and deployment to Venus. It also carried the Compton Gamma-ray Satellite to space, and brought a seven-member crew to complete servicing mission number 4 to the Hubble Space Telescope.

A total of 355 people have flown to space aboard the U.S. space shuttles. Among them have been the first U.S. woman to fly to space (Sally Ride), the oldest (John Glenn, age 77 at the time of his shuttle flight), and astronauts from Israel, Germany, Saudi Arabia, and several other countries. In addition, shuttle missions also ferried such life forms as plant seedlings, insects, shrimp, jellyfish, and rodents in a variety of life-sciences modules to test the effects of low gravity and other conditions.

Space shuttle Columbia flew the longest mission in November 1996. Her combined time on orbit for mission STS-80 was 17 days and 15 hours. In 135 shuttle flights, only two shuttle missions ended in disaster, resulting in the deaths of 14 astronauts. The first was the breakup of 51L, when space shuttle Challenger was destroyed 73 seconds into its launch on January 28, 1986. The second was the destruction of space shuttle Columbia as she disintegrated during her re-entry to the home port on February 1, 2003.

In 30 years, the shuttles have taken us to low-Earth orbit, delivered payloads that extended our eyes to the planets, stars, galaxies, and to the limits of the observable universe. There aren’t too many projects that human kind has taken on that can boast of such achievements. In the days and weeks to come, we will be seeing many tributes to the shuttle program and the people who made it happen. I’m joining in that chorus of praise: “Hail Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Endeavor, and Atlantis!” It’s been an amazing 30 years!

atlantis, musings, NASA, space shuttle

A Lot of “Last Times”

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Countdown to History for the Shuttle Program

he STS-135 crew members arrived at NASA Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility about 2:30 p.m. on July 4 for final preparations for space shuttle Atlantis' STS-135 and final mission to the International Space Station. From left are Commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Doug Hurley and Mission Specialists Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett July 4, 2011

Today was the last day that a space shuttle crew will fly in for a mission. The four crew members for STS-135 arrived at the Kennedy Space Center, their aircraft signaled to a stop by ground crew waving American flags.

There are a LOT of “lasts” with this mission. It’s been a long time coming, and each step towards Atlantis’s final flight is the last time that step will be taken.  In May, we saw the rollover of Atlantis from the Orbiter Processing Facility to the Vehicle Assembly Building at KSC. It was last such rollover. A few weeks later, Atlantis, mated to her SRBs and tank, rolled out of the VAB for the last time.

In a few days’ time, we’ll witness the last time a shuttle will be revealed during RSS retract. And, the next day, the last liftoff of a shuttle from the Kennedy Space Center will occur.

I know it’s a time of great sadness for people who worked on the space shuttles, and for those of us who followed the flights from Day 1 in 1981. But, in reality, this is the way life is.  Old technology reaches the end of its useful lifetime and it either has to be updated, re-engineered, or replaced.

Many factors went into the decision to stop the shuttle program, some of them were practical, others political. I’m not going to get into a big discussion here about who killed the shuttle program (it wasn’t President Obama, in case you thought that — you have to look further back in presidential history to see who among all the politicoes and policy makers is really responsible) or what will replace it. Perhaps another time. The point I want to make here is that for 30 years, we’ve gone to space with the shuttles. They’ve served an extremely useful purpose. And, if money were no object in this country, I’m quite sure that we’d find ways to extend their lifetimes or, even better, design newer, better shuttles to replace these — much as an airline replaces its older aircraft with newer ones.

But, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen with the shuttles, and so we now must go to space in other ways and find other means to fly to the stars.  It’s not the end of the world. It’s not even the end of space exploration. In case people have forgotten, NASA (and other space agencies around the world) are still out there studying the stars and planets with space-borne telescopes and planetary probes. The only thing that’s changed is the U.S. human access to space. The shuttles are rolling into history — and that’s as it should be. I hope that as we wave them goodbye, we don’t let this be the last time NASA sends people to space from U.S. soil.