This book tells the story of the Space Shuttle in its many different roles as orbital launch platform, orbital workshop, and science and technology laboratory. It focuses on the technology designed and developed to support the missions of the Space Shuttle program. Each mission is examined, from both the technical and managerial viewpoints. Although outwardly identical, the capabilities of the orbiters in the late years of the program were quite different from those in 1981. Sivolella traces the various improvements and modifications made to the shuttle over the years as part of each mission story. Technically accurate but with a pleasing narrative style and simple explanations of complex engineering concepts, the book provides details of many lesser known concepts, some developed but never flown, and commemorates the ingenuity of NASA and its partners in making each Space Shuttle mission push the boundaries of what we can accomplish in space.Using press kits, original papers, newspaper and magazine articles, memoirs and interviews, this book provides the most up-to-date and comprehensive account available of the shuttle’s many missions and will refocus interest on a remarkable flying machine and space program that is often pushed to the background.

The Space Shuttle was once the cornerstone of the U.S. space program. However, each new flight brings us one step closer to the retirement of the shuttle in 2010. Final Countdown is the riveting history of NASA's Space Shuttle program, its missions, and its impending demise. It also examines the plans and early development of the space agency’s next major effort: the Orion Crew Exploration Capsule. Journalist Pat Duggins, National Public Radio's resident "space expert," chronicles the planning stages of the shuttle program in the early 1970s, the thrills of the first flight in 1981, construction of the International Space Station in the 1990s, and the decision in the early 2000s to shut it down. As a rookie reporter visiting the Kennedy Space Center hangar to view the Challenger wreckage, Duggins was in a unique position to offer a poignant eyewitness account of NASA's first shuttle disaster. In Final Countdown, he recounts the agency's struggle to rebound after the Challenger and Columbia tragedies, and explores how politics, scientific entrepreneurship, and the human drive for exploration have impacted the program in sometimes unexpected ways. Duggins has covered eighty-six shuttle missions, and his twenty-year working relationship with NASA has given him unprecedented access to personnel. Many spoke openly and frankly with him, including veteran astronaut John Young, who discusses the travails to get the shuttle program off the ground. Young's crewmate, astronaut Bob Crippen, reveals the frustration and loss he felt when his first opportunity to go into space on the first planned space station was taken away. As the shuttle program winds down, more astronauts may face similar disappointments. Final Countdown is a story of lost dreams, new hopes, and the ongoing conquest of space.

NOTE: NO FURTHER DISCOUNT FOR THIS PRINT PRODUCT-- OVERSTOCK SALE -Significantly reduced list price The Space Shuttle fleet set high marks of achievement and endurance through 30 years of missions, from its first on April 12, 1981, to its last, on July 21, 2011. Beginning with the orbiter Columbia and continuing with Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Space Shuttle has carried people into orbit; launched, recovered, and repaired satellites; conducted cutting-edge research; and helped build the largest human made structure in space, the International Space Station. Replete with images and facts of each mission and crew, this book is a tribute to everything accomplished during the 30 years of operation of the Space Shuttle program that defined NASA for an entire generation. Other related products: NASA Historical Data Book, V. 7: NASA Launch Systems, Space Transportation/Human Spaceflight, and Space Science can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/033-000-01309-4 Revolutionary Atmosphere: The Story of the Altitude Wind Tunnel and the Space Power Chambers can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/033-000-01342-6 Leadership in Space: Selected Speeches of NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, May 2005-October 2008 can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/033-000-01314-1 Our Changing Atmosphere: Discoveries From EOS Aura (Booklet) can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/033-000-01345-1 Dressing for Altitude: U.S. Aviation Pressure Suits, Wiley Post to Space Shuttle --ePub format-- can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/999-000-44444-5 Wings in Orbit: Scientific and Engineering Legacies of the Space Shuttle 1971-2010 --Hardcover format can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/033-000-01347-7 --MOBI format can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/033-300-00008-5 --ePub format can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/033-300-00007-7 and here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/999-000-44444-2 Other products produced by NASA can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/agency/550

Get a full retrospective of all 134 flights, every mission, of the space shuttle program. This superbly designed and lavishly illustrated reissue of the best-selling hardcover book marks a special moment in history: the final mission of the space shuttle. Noted space and science author Piers Bizony's retrospective covers the entire space shuttle program that began in 1981 and ended in 2011. Every space shuttle mission is detailed, including all flights of the Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour spacecraft. The book also covers the development and design of the orbiter, as well as the technical specifications of the vehicle and details of its major assemblies and subassemblies. A full double-gatefold provides a large-scale technical drawing of the space shuttle. If you never got to watch the countdown clock in person during a space shuttle launch, The Space Shuttle is your chance to relive the history of America's first low Earth orbital spacecraft.

The space shuttle is a unique national resource. One of only two operating vehicles that carries humans into space, the space shuttle functions as a scientific laboratory and as a base for construction, repair, and salvage missions in low Earth orbit. It is also a heavy-lift launch vehicle (able to deliver more than 18,000 kg of payload to low Earth orbit) and the only current means of returning large payloads to Earth. Designed in the 1970s, the shuttle has frequently been upgraded to improve safety, cut operational costs, and add capability. Additional upgrades have been proposed-and some are under way-to combat obsolescence, further reduce operational costs, improve safety, and increase the ability of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to support the space station and other missions. In May 1998, NASA asked the National Research Council (NRC) to examine the agency's plans for further upgrades to the space shuttle system. The NRC was asked to assess NASA's method for evaluating and selecting upgrades and to conduct a top-level technical assessment of proposed upgrades.

History of the US space shuttle programme and its first 100 missions