Space Shuttles facts

While investigating facts about Space Shuttles Names and Space Shuttles That Blew Up, I found out little known, but curios details like:

In 1959, police were called to a segregated library in S. Carolina when a 9yr-old Black boy refused to leave. He later got a PhD in Physics from MIT, and died in 1986, one of the astronauts aboard the space shuttle Challenger. The library that refused to lend him books is now named after him.

how space shuttles work?

After the space shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003 the debris field stretched from Texas through Louisiana, and the search team was so thorough they found nearly 84,000 pieces of the shuttle, as well as a number of murder victims and a few meth labs.

What space shuttles exploded?

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what space shuttles have exploded. Here are 50 of the best facts about Space Shuttles That Exploded and Space Shuttles On Display I managed to collect.

what space shuttles blew up?

Most of the smoke billowing up from a space shuttle launch is not exhaust. It is water vapor from the pool of water under the shuttle designed to absorb the acoustic shock waves that could otherwise tear the shuttle apart.
The space shuttle flew 135 missions with a flight computer that had less than 1% of the computing power as an XBox 360.
On Space Shuttle Endeavor, astronaut John Grunsfeld called into NPR's Car Talk and asked why his government vehicle was shaking violently for a couple minutes before the engine died.
A NASA astronaut waited 19 years to fly in space. Don Lind was selected in 1966 but was chosen for canceled missions, or as backup for missions; he said, "I was backing up two of the most depressingly healthy people you can imagine." Lind finally flew on the space shuttle in 1985.
The first Space Shuttle was to be named "Constitution", but after a major letter writing campaign by Star Trek fans, its name was affectionately changed to "Enterprise".
The first orbiter of the Space Shuttle System was originally planned to be named Constitution, but a massive write-in campaign from fans of Star Trek convinced the White House to change the name to Enterprise
Most of the smoke billowing up from a space shuttle launch is not exhaust. It is water vapor from the pool of water under the shuttle designed to absorb the acoustic shock waves that could otherwise tear the shuttle apart.
William Shatner recorded a wake up call that was played for Space Shuttle Discovery and its crew for their last day docked at the ISS. Saying "Space, the final frontier. These have been the voyages of the Space Shuttle Discovery. Her 30-year mission:..."
Because the Space Shuttle was so hard to land (it was nicknamed "the flying brick"), shuttle crews must train in a modified Gulfstream with its main landing gears down, its engines in reverse, and its left hand side windows covered.
That, when asked to investigate the space shuttle Challenger disaster, Richard Feynman wrote a very critical report about NASA's safety policy concluding: "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."

space shuttles facts — What space shuttles have blown up?

Space Shuttles data charts

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space shuttles fact data chart about The data suggests that the chaps at r/Space would really lik — The data suggests that the chaps at r/Space would really like a Space Shuttle mission to Jupiter.

space shuttles fact data chart about NASA Space Shuttle Mission Launch Dates and NASA Annual Budg — NASA Space Shuttle Mission Launch Dates and NASA Annual Budget

Why space shuttles take off only vertically?

You can easily fact check why space shuttles were used by examining the linked well-known sources.

On April 1st, 1993 a San Diego Radio station reported that the space shuttle Discovery had to make an emergency landing at the local airport at 8:30 am. Over 1000 people headed for the landing site to catch a glimpse, crowding the airport and causing traffic jams. It was an April Fools hoax.

Immediately after the Challenger explosion, shares of every corporation involved in the Space Shuttle dropped. But by the end of the day, most had rebounded; only Morton Thiokol remained low. This was months before the official investigation found Thiokol to be responsible for the disaster. - source

When Lodewijk van den Ber designed an experiment for the Space Shuttle, NASA asked for a list of eight people who could fly in orbit to run it. Adding his own name to finish the list, to van den Ber's amazement he became the first Dutch spaceman despite his age (53) and physical condition. - source

The external fuel tank on the space shuttles were originally painted white, but it turned out this added 600 lbs of paint to the shuttle so it was kept the normal orange color

When U.S. space shuttles started linking up with Russia's Mir in 1995, both sides owed a small debt to the KGB. it was the KGB that successfully stole the U.S. designs in the '70s and '80s, unintentionally laying the groundwork for the compatibility between the U.S. and Russian systems. - source

When were the space shuttles built?

The last recorded words to come from inside the Challenger Space Shuttle before it exploded were, "Uh oh."

How space shuttles return to earth?

The Soviet Union named a crater on Venus after Christa McAuliffe, the teacher astronaut who died during the Challenger space shuttle disaster.

One of the last procedures before a space shuttle launch is to remove the inflatable owls from the aircraft.

The total cost of the Challenger Space Shuttle recovery by the Navy ($13.1 million) was equal to the street value of a duffle bag of cocaine found during the search

Evidence shows that the space shuttle Challenger's crew survived the explosion and could have been conscious until the crew cabin hit the ocean. 4 of 5 recovered crew air packs had been activated and pilot switches that could only have been moved manually by a person were moved.

The Space Shuttle couldn't fly on new years day / eve because it couldn't handle the year rollover

When does nasa launch space shuttles?

Crew members of the Challenger space shuttle survived the “explosion,” manually activated their emergency breathing packs, and were very likely alive for the full 2 minute and 45 second, 65,000 foot free-fall until their crew cabin crashed into the ocean.

American Space Shuttle Astronaut John Grunsfeld, while in orbit, called in to NPR's Car Talk posing as a stumped caller.

Story Musgrave, the most formally educated astronaut with six academic degrees, a consultant to both Disney's Imagineering group and Applied Minds in California, and is the only astronaut to fly on all 5 Space Shuttles.

The highest quality software ever written was the code for the space shuttle, with 1 error for every 420,000 lines of code.

NASA astronaut Anna Lee Fisher made news in 2012, when, during the landing of the Space Shuttle Discovery at Washington's Dulles Airport, she was asked by an aspiring young astronaut how they could get into the space program, Fisher quipped "study Russian."

How space shuttles land?

In 1996 NASA generated electricity with a satellite on a 13 mile long wire, released from Space Shuttle. The wire was clearly visible from Earth and was one of the biggest human-made objects in space.

Big Bird was supposed to be launched into space to encourage kid's interest in space/NASA. Instead they went with a teacher named Christa McAuliffe, who unfortunately died when the Challenger Space Shuttle exploded during take off.

In 1986, there were plans to put Big Bird on the space shuttle, to encourage kids to get interested in space. There wasn't enough room for the puppet, and Caroll Spinney, who portrays the 8-foot-2 bird, was replaced by a teacher. It was for a seat on the ill-fated space shuttle Challenger.

The first Space Shuttle was to be named "Constitution", but after a major letter writing campaign by fans of Star Trek, its was renamed to "Enterprise".

In honor of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, the Soviet Union named a crater on Venus after Christa McAuliffe, who was supposed to be the first teacher in space but died in the disaster.

A man flew three times on the Space Shuttle without being an astronaut. Charles Walker got turned down by NASA but found a space-related job at McDonnell Douglas. McDonnell Douglas paid NASA $40,000 per flight for Walker to operate its experiments on the shuttle as a payload specialist.

The flaw that destroyed Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986 almost occurred on another mission a year earlier. One of the astronauts on the 1985 flight was told that "you came within three-tenths of one second of dying."

The last words from the Space Shuttle Challenger was "Uh-oh". Less than half a second later the shuttle disintegrated and all crew on board died.

When the Space Shuttle Columbia landed in White Sands, New Mexico in 1982, sand got everywhere. So much gypsum dust got into the spacecraft that sand kept coming out from nooks and crannies of Columbia for the next two decades.

In 2009, just in case Space Shuttle Atlantis was damaged while working on the Hubble, Endeavor was readied to launch a rescue mission. This was one of the few times both shuttle launch pads were occupied.

In the early days of the Space Shuttle program, NASA aimed for 60 launches a year. By the end, the average was only 6.

During a Space Shuttle launch abort in 1984, leaking hydrogen was causing a fire invisible to human eyes. If the astronauts had evacuated according to emergency procedure, they would have been incinerated by it.

Many of the Space Shuttles parts were produced exclusively by small mom and pop shops. When the shuttle retirement was announced, a lifetime buy of parts was made — when the Shuttle retired, the mom and pop shops retired with it.

LASIK eye surgery uses the same algorithm NASA created to dock space shuttles in order to properly align the laser to the eye.

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