Space Shuttle!

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Space Shuttle pictures,

There have been no space shuttles launched since the Columbia disaster in 2003. NASA has taken time for mourning and for research before another flight is sent into orbit. The space program took a similar break after the explosion of the Challenger in 1986. The “Return to Flight Mission” intended to resume use of the space shuttle is scheduled for May of 2005. The space shuttle program was first conceived in the late sixties, when the rising costs of the Saturn rocket for the Apollo and Gemini programs came under scrutiny. The Saturn rocket, mostly comprised of non-reusable parts, became too unwieldy. NASA needed a reliable, low cost system that was good for more than one use, something that could launch like the Saturn, yet land like a plane. Research began right away on a space “shuttle”, a vehicle that could ferry astronauts to and from orbit, that could hold large payloads like satellites and space station sections, and could sustain around a hundred flights.

Two decades of research and testing coalesced in April of 1981 when the first space shuttle, Columbia, manned by John Young and Robert Crippen, achieved a safe ascent, orbit, system check, and reentry. The space shuttle program, originally envisaged as a precursor to a lunar colony and possible manned missions to Mars, eventually centered on the construction and completion of an International Space Station. Despite the many benefits of the space shuttle, it failed to reduce the exorbitant costs of space flight. Intended to cost $10 to $20 million per flight, one space shuttle mission costs around $500 million, far beyond projected expenses. NASA currently plans to sustain the space shuttle project through the completion of the International Space Station scheduled for 2010. At that time, NASA plans to initiate a new program, tentatively named the Crew Exploration Vehicle, a system reverting back to the design of the Saturn rocket and Apollo program.

Among our space shuttle pictures, we include images of the Apollo 11 launch, the first mission to the moon, and an artistic rendition of the completed International Space Station, images comprising end caps for the space shuttle project. We also have images of Atlantis and Discovery at various times during a space shuttle mission, including a moving image of Atlantis, ferried on the back of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft early in the morning. Bearing in mind the pecuniary cost and the acute loss of human life, the space shuttle program has been a painful ordeal, but it has also advance the frontiers of science and humanity. Those that have sacrificed everything for the continuation of a space program should not be forgotten, nor should the achievements for which they strove. Our collection of space shuttle pictures commemorates all those involved in the space shuttle program.


James Webb©2005