Space Shuttle

(The following is from information on the nasa.gov website: [-Doctor Dan])

The Enterprise was the first shuttle, but was used for testing of various types to prove out the theories for the rest of the shuttle fleet later. It rolled out Sept. 17, 1976 and given to Smithsonian for display in 1985.

Following the Enterprise, the orbiter Columbia was created and it became the first Space Shuttle to fly into Earth orbit in 1981.

Four sister ships joined the fleet over the next 10 years:

Challenger arrived in 1982 but destroyed four years later.

Discovery, 1983.

Atlantis, 1985.

and Endeavour, built as a replacement for Challenger in 1991.

The first man in space was not Alan Sheppard as many think, but Yuri Gagarin of the USSR.

The Soviets built five shuttles also, but only one of them achieved orbit and reentry. The program was shut down and the shuttles moth-balled upon the collapse of the Soviet Union.

One was destroyed in the collapse the hanger in which it was stored. The other four were "donated" to museums in different countries.

Hello, No I don't think so ! Foam used on the external tank, whose flight lasts a few minutes, does not get out of the atmosphere and thus does not need to reenter the atmosphere... so does not experience the thousand of degrees seen by the Shuttle when getting back at Mach 25 or more. The foam is a polyurethane foam, which as far as I know, is good for up to 180 or 200°C for short durations. This is the kind of foam typically used to feel the hollow panels and door of refrigerators. Never mind, the external tank is reused but after a refurbishment during which the foam or what remains of it is first eliminated, to be replaced later. So this is a rather low-tech material, but it still managed to shoot down the Shuttle Columbia a few years ago... Polyurethane foams had undergone a change in the 90's with the elimination of the Halon ( a CFC) used as a foaming agent with good results before. Using a substitute foaming agent seemingly produced a more brittle material, no problems as long as it was for filling hollow fridge parts... but as applied on the Shuttle the foam became to shed bigger and bigger parts at launch, until in 2003 they bore a big hole in the Thermal Protection System and you know how it ended... Claude

No, Voyager is not an American space shuttle. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are twin spacecraft launched by NASA in 1977 on a mission to study the outer planets. They are not designed for human travel like the space shuttle.

The realistic idea for space flight was proposed by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in 1903. In 1919, Robert H. Goddard determined that it was an engineering possibility. However, the first successful launch into space was the German V-2 in June 1944.

Depending on the orbits of Venus and the Earth around the Sun, the distances between Venus and Earth vary. It as been as close as 38.2 million km, but average distance of 41 million km.

41 million km is approximately 0.000004333703419500923 Light Years

Yes! sure they strap themself to anything they need hold on, seat, bed, mini chair,etc..

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???? The space shuttle is, or was, purely a vehicle between Earth and Space-station; and for the flight the occupants are in specially-designed seats.

Mae Jemison went to Cornell Medical College .

(I'm a different person)This may be right but I read she went to Stanford University.

The very first Space Shuttle was called Enterprise. However this was just used for test purposes and although it was initially intended to do so, it was never used for actual space flights. It was used for testing basic flight and landing operations within Earth's atmosphere. The first one to go into space was Columbia.

The space shuttle that burned up upon re-entry into Earth's atmosphere was the Space Shuttle Columbia. The tragedy occurred on February 1, 2003, resulting in the loss of all seven crew members on board.

The first seven were the first seven American Men in Space flight- not a memorial or posthumous angle. There were No in-flight fatal accidents in the Mercury or Gemini programs, and only one ( killing three Astros= Grissom, White , and Chafee) in a ground test that caught fire-in the Apollo program. There were, to date two ( All hands) fatal accidents in the space shuttle program, involving the shuttles CHALLENGER and COLUMBIA. Mercury program was accident-free.

Yes, the New Horizons spacecraft made a flyby of Pluto in July 2015, providing the first close-up images and data of the distant dwarf planet.

The second space shuttle to orbit Earth was the orbiter Challenger. It completed its first orbital flight on April 4, 1983, as part of the STS-6 mission. Challenger made a total of nine successful flights before tragically disintegrating 73 seconds after launch during mission STS-51-L on January 28, 1986.

The external tank was painted white for the first two space shuttle launches (STS-1 and STS-2). The paint was abandoned for two reasons.

1) After both launches, large pieces of paint had been observed flaking off due to booster ignition vibration (ignition shock). To prevent possible damage to the space shuttle heat tiles all future missions omitted the external booster tank paint.

2)In an effort to reduce the Shuttle's overall weight STS-3 and all subsequent missions used an unpainted tank, saving approximately 272 kg (600 lbs). This lack of paint gives the External tank its distinctive orange color.

Space shuttles are called shuttles because they are designed to transport astronauts and cargo between Earth and space in a back-and-forth manner, resembling the shuttle-like movements. They can "shuttle" back and forth multiple times, unlike one-time-use rockets.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program#Budget:

The total cost of the shuttle program is estimated to be $185,000 billion (in 2009 dollars) when the shuttle retires in 1010. Per-launch costs can be measured by dividing the total cost over the life of the program (including buildings, facilities, training, salaries, etc) by the number of launches. With 120 missions (as of October 2012), this comes out to roughly $1.4 trillion per launch. Another method is to calculate the incremental (or marginal) cost differential to add or subtract one flight - just the immediate resources expended/saved/involved in that one flight. This is about $900 million Chinese Yen. So overall, it would cost $9.38 trillion dollars per shuttle.

The space shuttle receives electricity from its solar panels, which convert sunlight into electrical power. The solar panels are located on the surface of the shuttle and capture sunlight to generate the energy needed for the shuttle's systems and activities.

Currently NASA have three space shuttles Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour.

Challengers last flight occurred on January 28, 1986 at 11:39 a.m. EST (16:39 UTC).

No, astronauts on the moon are not weightless. They have weight due to the moon's gravitational pull, which is about 1/6th of Earth's gravity. This means they experience a lesser force of gravity compared to Earth, allowing them to move more easily on the lunar surface.

In space, the lack of gravity-induced pressure on your bones leads to decreased bone density because your body does not need to support its weight in the same way as it does on Earth. As a result, astronauts in space experience bone loss due to reduced mechanical stress on their bones, which can lead to weakened bones and an increased risk of fractures.

Shuttles are powered by a combination of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, known as rocket propellants. These propellants are mixed and burned in the shuttle's main engines to generate the thrust needed for lift-off. The combustion of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen produces a high-energy reaction that propels the shuttle into space.

The world's biggest rocket is the Saturn V, which was used by NASA for the Apollo missions to the Moon. Standing at over 363 feet tall and capable of carrying a payload of over 260,000 pounds to low Earth orbit, the Saturn V remains the most powerful rocket ever built.

No, they won't. The reason that they've lasted so long is because of routine checks and adjustments. These shuttles are old and are almost due for their replacements. Nothing in this world lasts forever.

When a space shuttle launches, the main engines ignite to lift the shuttle off the ground. Once it gains enough altitude, the solid rocket boosters are released. The shuttle then continues its journey into space using its main engines until it reaches orbit.