X-Nico

18 unusual facts about space shuttle


45th Weather Squadron

It specialized in the weather assessments for the Space Shuttle launches at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

750th Space Group

Primary responsibilities for the AFSCN and Air Force support to Space Shuttle missions transferred to the 21st Space Operations Squadron, 50th Space Wing, Schriever AFB, Colorado; however the 22d Space Operations Squadron stood up at Onizuka AFS to provide a necessary backup.

Antelope Valley Conservancy

The flat, clay surface of the dry lakes are the heart of Edwards Air Force Base, site of innumerable historic flight tests and alternative landing site for the Space Shuttle.

Bagel

In modern times, Canadian-born astronaut Gregory Chamitoff is the first person known to have taken a batch of bagels into space on his 2008 Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station.

California State Route 14

In Rosamond, the highway passes close to Edwards Air Force Base, which was often used as one of the main landing strips for NASA's Space Shuttle, and as the base for the X-15 and many other air and spacecraft.

The northern portion, from Vincent (south of Palmdale) to Route 395, is legislatively named the Aerospace Highway, as the highway serves Edwards Air Force Base, once one of the primary landing strips for NASA's Space Shuttle.

Doomlord

Shortly afterwards, Vek was taken to Nox by a fail-safe device in the Deathlord's ship when he tried to use it to rescue the Space Shuttle, where he convinced the Council that the death judgement was wrong and to lift the sentence of death from Earth; however his crimes against Nox meant he was returned to Earth in exile.

Energia

Unlike the Energia, which was planned to be semi-reusable (like that of the U.S. Space Shuttle), the Uragan design would have allowed the complete recovery of all Buran/Energia elements, like that of the original totally reusable Orbiter/Booster concept of the U.S. Shuttle.

Field-sequential color system

Early Space Shuttle flights (from 1981 to 1995) used cameras with interchangeable lenses.

Henry Obering

Obering received his pilot wings in 1975 and flew operational assignments in the F-4E; he was later assigned to the Space Shuttle program and participated in 15 space shuttle launches as a NASA orbiter project engineer and was responsible for integrating firing room launch operations.

Hubble Live

The program covered the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis on NASA's Servicing Mission 4 (HST-SM4), the eleven-day fifth and final mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.

Istres

This air base was one of 3 utilized by NASA as a contingency landing site for the Space Shuttle in the case of a Transoceanic Abort Landing (TAL).

Nuna 1

These cells were part of a large solar array, retrieved by ESA astronaut Claude Nicollier and brought back to Earth in 1993 with a Space Shuttle.

Plasticizer

The solid rocket propellant used to fuel the Space Shuttle solid rocket booster employs a non-energetic plasticizer/binder/secondary fuel: HTPB.

Shuttlecraft

The Space Shuttle, an orbital spacecraft built and operated by NASA

The Space Place

Neil - Shuttle, American, 30s, Male, Neil is straightforward and sensible and likes to learn.

Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System

Many Tracking and Data Relay Satellites were launched in the 1980s and 1990s with the Space Shuttle and made use of the Inertial Upper Stage, a two-stage solid rocket booster developed for the shuttle.

With the creation of the Space Shuttle in the mid-1970s, a requirement for a higher performance space-based communication system arose.


Al Qöyawayma

In 2002, astronaut John Herrington, a member of the Chickasaw tribe, took one of Qöyawayma's ceramic pots into orbit aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-113, which docked with the International Space Station.

Amateur rocketry

During Series 9, Episode 4 of the BBC's Top Gear, presenters Richard Hammond and James May were given 12 days to convert a Reliant Robin into a re-usable space shuttle.

Background radiation

Astronauts in low orbits, such as in the International Space Station or the Space Shuttle, are partially shielded by the magnetic field of the Earth, but also suffer from the Van Allen radiation belt which accumulates cosmic rays and results from the earths magnetic field.

Double Eagle V

Double Eagle V failed to attract the same degree of media attention as the earlier flight, in part because it was overshadowed by the concurrent Space Shuttle mission STS-2.

Extravehicular Mobility Unit

It was used by NASA's Space Shuttle astronauts prior to the end of the Shuttle program in 2011.

Flight 19

In 1986, the wreckage of an Avenger was found off the Florida coast during the search for the wreckage of the Space Shuttle Challenger.

Flight suit

The now common "shirt-sleeve environment" of the orbiting Space Shuttle and International Space Station has resulted in much more casual attire during spaceflight such as shorts and polo shirts.

Golden Spike Company

Other advisers include former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, former NASA Space Shuttle manager Wayne Hale, author and aeronautical engineer Homer Hickam, and former governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson.

History of laptops

However, it was used heavily by the U.S. military, and by NASA on the Space Shuttle during the 1980s.

Hybrid rocket

In the February 18, 2007 episode of Top Gear, a Reliant Robin was used by Richard Hammond and James May in an attempt to modify a normal K-reg Robin into a reusable space shuttle.

International Standard Payload Rack

The ISPRs will be outfitted with a thin center post to accommodate sub-rack-sized payloads, such as the 483 mm (19-inch rack) Spacelab Standard Interface Rack (SIR) Drawer or the Space Shuttle Middeck Locker.

James C. Fletcher

During his first administration at NASA, Fletcher was responsible for beginning the Space Shuttle effort, as well as the Viking program that sent landers to Mars.

James Neihouse

Neihouse has trained more than 120 NASA astronauts and 10 Russian cosmonauts on 20 space shuttle flights to film in space aboard the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station.

Julie Payette

Payette flew on Space Shuttle Discovery from May 27 to June 6, 1999, as part of the crew of STS-96.

Kieran Prendiville

He was BBC television's choice for on-site commentator of the first space shuttle mission, reporting from Cape Canaveral and Edwards Air Force Base.

Louise Thaden

In 1991 astronaut Eileen Collins carried Thaden's flying helmet into space on the space shuttle to honor her achievements and the early women pioneers of flight.

Manned Maneuvering Unit

The Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) is an astronaut propulsion unit that was used by NASA on three Space Shuttle missions in 1984.

Mission Specialist

A Mission Specialist (MS) is a position held by certain NASA astronauts during Space Shuttle missions.

Museum of Flight

In June 2010, the museum broke ground on a $12 million new building to house a Space Shuttle it hoped to receive from NASA, named the Charles Simonyi Space Gallery.

NASAspaceflight.com

The website went online in the summer of 2005, just before the first "Return to Flight" Space Shuttle mission (STS-114) following the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.

National Launch System

The National Launch System (or New Launch System) was a study authorized in 1991 by President George H. W. Bush to outline alternatives to the Space Shuttle for access to Earth Orbit.

Navy Mark IV

B.F. Goodrich would only be used after Mercury for the production of the landing gear tires for the Space Shuttle, but this has since been done by Michelin.

Plug door

Currently, plug doors are used only on the outer hatch doors on the Space Shuttle and International Space Station as well as on the hatch between the Orbital Module and Descent Module on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

Proton-K

Thirty were launched in this configuration, with payloads including all of the Soviet Union's Salyut space stations, all Mir modules with the exception of the Docking Module, which was launched on the US Space Shuttle, and the Zarya and Zvezda modules of the International Space Station.

Rocket-powered aircraft

In the early 1960s, American research into the Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar spaceplane was cancelled due to lack of purpose; later the studies contributed to the Space Shuttle, which in turn motivated the Russian Buran (spacecraft).

Scramjet

For example the space shuttle external tank holds 616,432 kg of liquid oxygen (LOX) and 103,000 kg of liquid hydrogen (LH2) while having an empty weight of 30,000 kg.

Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicle

The National Launch System was a study authorized in 1991 by President George H. W. Bush to outline alternatives to the Space Shuttle for access to Earth Orbit.

Sinclair Skinner

Skinner has worked for numerous engineering companies including Ohmeda, Inc., Honeywell, Pillsbury, McDonnell Douglas Corporation and The Architect of the Capitol where he performed testing and development for the space shuttle’s main engine controllers, manufacturing for a flour mill company and designed roadways in Macon County, Alabama where he was an apprentice to Curtis Pierce, the first African American county engineer in Macon County, Alabama.

Space Shuttle Project

The object of Space Shuttle Project is to successfully launch and fly one of NASA's historic Space Shuttles as a shuttle commander.

TASC, Inc

The firm provided the US government with modeling, simulation, analysis, and evaluation of integrated navigation and guidance systems for programs including the Trident submarine, Minuteman Missile, and the Space Shuttle.

Umpqua Research Company

URC designs and builds water disinfection and purification subsystems for the Space Shuttle, extra-vehicular activity, the International Space Station, and flight experiments.

United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs

Since 2009 Takao Doi, a former Japanese astronaut and a veteran of two NASA space shuttle missions, is chief of Space Applications section of the Office.

VX-30

The NP-3D aircraft were also used to support five NASA Space Shuttle missions using the Cast Glance optical system to monitor re-entry.

William F. Readdy

He served in numerous support roles including: Training Officer; Safety Officer; Operations Development Branch Chief; NASA Director of Operations, Star City, Russia; Stafford Task Force; and the first manager of Space Shuttle Program Development charged with upgrading the Space Shuttle.