The Space Shuttle :: essays research papers

The Space ShuttleThe move, a manned, multipurpose, orbital-launch space plane, was designed tocarry payloads of up to about 30,000 kg (65,000 lb) and up to seven crew membersand passengers. The upper slice of the spacecraft, the orbiter stage, had atheoretical lifetime of perhaps 100 missions, and the winged orbiter could makeunpowered landings on returning to earth. Because of the shuttles designedflexibility and its plan use for satellite deployment and the rescue andrepair of previously orbited satellites, its proponents saw it as a majoradvance in the practical exploitation of space. Others, however, worried thatNASA was placing similarly much reliance on the shuttle, to the detriment of other,unmanned vehicles and missions.The root space shuttle mission, piloted by John W. Young and Robert Crippenaboard the orbiter Columbia, was launched on April 12, 1981. It was a testflight flown without payload in the orbiters cargo bay. The fifth space shuttleflight was the first opera tional mission the astronauts in the Columbiadeployed 2 commercial communications satellites from November 11 to 16, 1982.Later memorable flights included the seventh, whose crew included the first U.S.woman astronaut, Sally K. Ride the ninth mission, November 28-December 8, 1983,which carried the first of the European Space Agencys Spacelabs the 11thmission, April 7-13, 1984, during which a satellite was retrieved, repaired, andredeployed and the 14th mission, November 8-14, 1984, when two expensivemalfunctioning satellites were retrieved and returned to earth.Despite such successes, the shuttle program was falling behind in its plannedlaunch program, was increasingly being used for military tests, and was meetingstiff competition from the European Space Agencys unmanned Ariane program forthe orbiting of satellites. Then, on January 28, 1986, the shuttle Challengerwas destroyed about one minute after launch because of the failure of a sealantring on one of its solid suspensors. F lames escaping from the booster burned ahole in the main propellant tank of liquid hydrogen and oxygen and caused thebooster to nose into and rupture the tank. This rupture caused a nearlyexplosive disruption of the whole system. Seven astronauts were killed in thedisaster commander Francis R. Scobee, pilot Michael J. Smith, missionspecialists Judith A. Resnik, Ellison S. Onizuka, and Ronald E. McNair, andpayload specialists Gregory B. Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe. McAuliffe had beenselected the preceding year as the first "teacher in space," a civilianspokesperson for the shuttle program. The tragedy brought an immediate halt toshuttle flights until systems could be analyzed and redesigned. A presidential military commission headed by former secretary of state William Rogers and former