Space Shuttle program - Space Shuttle program Space Shuttle Columbia, 1981 (NASA) NASA's Space Shuttle program is an ongoing endeavor, started in the late 1960s, that has created the world's first partially reusable space launch system, and the first spacecraft capable of carrying large satellites both to and from low Earth orbit. Each shuttle is designed for a projected lifespan of 100 launches. The original purpose of the program was to ferry supplies to a space station. In reality, the Shuttle is the United States' sole manned launch vehicle and has totally dominated NASA's operations since the mid 1970s. With the construction of the International Space Station the Shuttle has finally begun to be used for its original purpose. In January 2004, it was announced that the Shuttle fleet would.
Canadian space program - Canadian space program Canada has contributed expertise and personnel to the world space effort, especially in collaboration with NASA. Eight Canadians have participated on 11 NASA missions to date: Name Shuttle Mission Launch Date Notes Marc Garneau Challenger STS-41-G October 5, 1984 First Canadian in space Roberta Bondar Discovery STS-42 January 22, 1992 First Canadian woman in space Steven G. MacLean Columbia STS-52 October 22, 1992 Chris Hadfield Atlantis STS-74 November 12, 1995 Marc Garneau Endeavour STS-77 May 19, 1996 Robert Thirsk Columbia STS-78 June 20, 1996 Bjarni Tryggvason Discovery STS-85 August 7, 1997 Dafydd Rhys Williams Columbia STS-90 April 17, 1998 Julie Payette Discovery STS-96 May 27, 1999 Marc Garneau Endeavour STS-97 November 30, 2000 Chris Hadfield Endeavour STS-100 April 19, 2001 First spacewalk by a.
Space Shuttle Enterprise - Space Shuttle Enterprise The Shuttle Orbiter Enterprise (NASA Designation: OV-101) was the first Space Shuttle built for NASA. It was initially constructed without engines or a functional heat shield and was therefore not capable of space operations without a refit. It was intended to be the second space shuttle to fly after the Space Shuttle Columbia even though it was built first, however, it was found to be cheaper to refit a test article (STA-099) into the Space Shuttle Challenger. Originally planned to be called Constitution, the test vehicle was renamed following a write-in campaign after the starship featured on the television show Star Trek, which in turn was named for the various ships named USS Enterprise. Amusingly, in one of the subsequent Star Trek movies.
Space Shuttle Columbia disaster - Space Shuttle Columbia disaster Crew of STS-107 on launch day () STS-107 was a space shuttle mission by NASA using the Space Shuttle Columbia. The entire seven member crew was killed on February 1, 2003, when the shuttle disintegrated over Texas during reentry into the Earth's atmosphere.This was the second total loss of a Space Shuttle, the first being Challenger. Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide") 1 Timeline 2 Effect on US space program 3 Investigation 3.1 The Columbia Accident Investigation Board 4 Shuttle Crew of Flight STS-107 5 External Links Timeline At about 05:54 PST (08:54 EST), a California news photographer observed pieces breaking away from Columbia as it passed overhead, as well as a red flare coming from the shuttle itself. At about 09:00 EST (14:00.
John F. Kennedy Space Center - John F. Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) is the NASA space vehicle launch facility (spaceport) at Cape Canaveral on Merritt Island in Florida, United States. The site is midway between Miami and Jacksonville, Florida. It is 55 km long and around 10 km wide, covering 56,700 hectares. Around 17,000 people work at the site. There is a visitor center and public tours and KSC is a major tourist destination for visitors to Florida. Because much of KSC is off limits to development, the site also serves as an important wildlife sanctuary. Operations are currently controlled from Launch Complex 39, the location of the Vehicle Assembly Building. 6 km to the east of the assembly building are the two launch pads. 8 km south.
International Space Station - International Space Station Continuing on from the United States' Skylab and Russia's Mir, the International Space Station (ISS) represents a permanent human presence in space. The space station is located in orbit around the Earth at an altitude of approximately 386 km, a type of orbit usually termed low Earth orbit. (The actual height varies over time by several kilometres due to atmospheric drag and reboosts.) It orbits Earth at a period of about 92 minutes; on December 1, 2003 it had completed over 28,700 orbits since launch. It is serviced primarily by the Space Shuttle, and Soyuz and Progress spacecraft units. It is still being built, but is home to some experimentation already. At present, the station has a capacity for a crew of three, who.
Hubble Space Telescope - Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (HST, or Hubble) is a telescope located at the outer edges of Earth's atmosphere, about 600 kilometerss above the ground, orbiting the Earth every 100 minutes. It was placed into orbit, in April 1990, as a joint project of NASA and the ESA. The telescope can achieve optical resolutions greater than 0.1 arcseconds. The HST is named after Edwin Hubble. It is scheduled for replacement, by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), in 2009. Every day, the Hubble Space Telescope archives 3 to 5 gigabytes of data and delivers between 10 and 15 gigabytes to astronomers. Working outside the atmosphere has advantages because the atmosphere obscures images and filters out electromagnetic radiation at certain wavelengths, mainly in the infrared. Hubble.
Teacher in Space Project - Teacher in Space Project Christa McAuliffe (left) and Barbara Morgan pose in front of the Space Shuttle mission simulator (SMS) after their selection for TISP. The Teacher in Space Project (TISP) is a NASA program designed to educate students and spur excitement in math, science, and space exploration. Christa McAuliffe was selected to be the first teacher in space in 1984 with Barbara Morgan as her alternate. McAuliffe died during the launch of the 25th Space Shuttle mission, STS-51-L, which was to make her the first teacher in space. NASA halted the TISP until 1998 amid concerns surrounding the risk of sending civillians to space. Morgan was selected as the first Educator Astronaut in January, 1998. Morgan is assigned to the crew of STS-118 which may launch.
Shuttle Buran - Shuttle Buran The Soviet reusable spacecraft program Buran (meaning 'snowstorm' or 'blizzard' in Russian) was launched in 1976 as a response to the United States Space Shuttle program. Soviet politicians were convinced that the Space Shuttle could be used for military purposes, hence posing a potential threat to the balance of power during the Cold War. The project was the largest and the most expensive in the history of Soviet space exploration. History The construction of the shuttles began in 1980 and by 1984 the first full-scale Buran was rolled out. The first suborbital test flight of a scale-model, however, took place as early as July 1983. As the project lasted, five additional scale-model flights were performed. With the first full-scale Buran, 24 test flights were.
Space exploration - Space exploration Space exploration is the physical exploration of outer-earth objects and generally anything that involves the technologies, science, and politics regarding space endeavors. The idea of sending an object to space was conceived in the minds of many science fiction authors hundreds of years before it was actually feasible. Some of these works even included various descriptions of exactly how that would be done. During the 20th century, with the development of adequate propulsion technologies, stronger and lighter materials and other technological and scientific breakthroughs, the idea of outer-earth missions was no longer a dream, but a viable practice. The first successful space launch was of the Soviet unmanned Sputnik I mission on October 4, 1957. The first orbital flight made by a human being.
Space tourism - Space tourism Space tourism is the recent phenomenon of space travel by individuals for the purpose of personal pleasure. At the moment, space tourism is only open to exceptionally wealthy individuals, with the Russian space program providing transport. Whilst it is argued that John Glenn was essentially a tourist on his 1997 Shuttle flight STS-95, the first fee-paying space tourist was Dennis Tito, who visited the International Space Station in 2001. He was followed by South African Mark Shuttleworth. More individuals are keen to make the trip, such as boy band singer Lance Bass, who however had his trip canceled due to funding problems. After the Columbia disaster space tourism on the russian Soyuz is on hold, as the Soyuz is the currently only available transport.
Space Camp - Space Camp Space Camp is a 1986 movie which was based on a book written by Patrick Bailey and Larry B Williams and a screenplay by WW Wicket and Casey T Mitchell. In the movie, four teenagers and a twelve year old boy go to a NASA space camp, to spend three weeks of their summer training as astronauts and learning about the space program in general. There, they will meet a female instructor who is frustrated at the fact she still hasn't gotten a chance to be up there, despite this being her life's dream. But things start to unravel when the 12 year old boy, Max, saves the life of a robot named Jinx, and, to return the favor, Jinx decides to send Max.
PL/I programming language - the needs of very different types of users (business and scientific). Such delays, its complexity, and the low quality of early versions of IBM's PL/I compiler discouraged users to switch from COBOL or Fortran. It contained many rarely used features, such as multithreading support, which added corresponding cost and complexity to the compiler. Another major problem was that instead of noticing features that would make their job easier, scientific (Fortran) programmers of the time had the opinion that it was a business language, while business (COBOL) programmers looked on it as a scientific language! Compiler complexity was another issue that was perhaps underestimated during the initial design of the language. Optimization was unusually complex due to the need to handle asynchronous modification of variables (for example in the 'on error' construct).
Kalpana Chawla - (July 1, 1961 - February 1, 2003) was an astronaut and space shuttle mission specialist of STS-107 (Columbia) who was killed when the craft disintegrated after reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. Kalpana Chawla Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide") 1 Early Life 2 Education 3 NASA Career 4 Personal Characteristics 5 Memoria 6 See also 7 External Links Early Life Chawla was born in Karnal, Haryana, India. Her interest in flight was inspired by J. R. D. Tata, India's first pilot. Education Chawla studied aeronautical engineering at the Punjab Engineering College in Punjab, India in 1982 where she earned her Bachelor of Science degree. Thereafter she moved to the United States to obtain a Master of Science degree in aerospace engineering from University of Texas (1984). Dr. Chawla earned a doctorate in aerospace.
January 5 - - FM radio is demonstrated to the FCC for the first time. 1944 - The London Daily Mail becomes the first transoceanic newspaper. 1945 - The Soviet Union recognizes the new pro-Soviet government of Poland. 1948 - Warner Brothers shows the first color newsreel (Tournament of Roses Parade and the Rose Bowl). 1957 - Major league baseballer Jackie Robinson retires. 1961 - Television: Mr. Ed debuts. 1968 - "Prague Spring" begins in Czechoslovakia. 1970 - Soap opera: All My Children premieres. 1972 - President of the United States Richard Nixon orders the development of a space shuttle program. 1975 - The Tasman Bridge in Tasmania, Australia, is struck by the bulk ore carrier Lake Illawarra, killing twelve people. 1980 - Hewlett-Packard announces release of its first personal computer. 1984 - Richard.
January 12 - term as Prime Minister of Japan. 1908 - A long-distance radio message is sent from the Eiffel Tower for the first time. 1915 - The Rocky Mountain National Park is formed by an act of Congress. 1915 - United States House of Representatives rejects proposal to give women the right to vote. 1926 - Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll premiere their radio program Sam 'n' Henry, in which the two white performers portrayed two black characters; some consider the show the first situation comedy. It was a precursor to Gosden and Correll's more popular later program, Amos 'n' Andy. 1932 - Hattie W. Caraway becomes the first woman elected to the United States Senate. 1940 - World War II: Russia bombs cities in Finland. 1942 - President Franklin Roosevelt creates the.
Vehicle Assembly Building - Vehicle Assembly Building A node of the International Space Station in front of the Vehicle Assembly Building. The Vehicle Assembly Building, or VAB, is a very large building, at the Kennedy Space Center, half way between Jacksonville, and Miami in Florida. It was originally built to assemble the stages of the Saturn V rocket for the Apollo program. It is now used to mate the Space shuttle with its boosters. Once assembled, the rocket is moved on a moving platform to Launch Complex 39. The VAB's interior volume is so vast that it has its own weather system. One indicator of the building's scale is that each of the stars on the US flag painted on the building is 6 feet (1.8 metres) across..
John Glenn - pilot, astronaut and politician. John Glenn during the Mercury program 1962 (NASA) Born in Cambridge, Ohio, he obtained a BS in Engineering from Muskingum College. He enrolled in the Naval Aviation Cadet Program in 1942, and was assigned to the Marines VMO-155 group in 1944. Glenn flew a Corsair over the Marshall Islands, specifically Maloelap, where he was tasked with attacking anti-aircraft gunnery and ground bombardment. By 1945, he was transferred to the Patuxent River Test Pilot School, where he became a test pilot and was promoted to Captain by the war's end. After the war, Glenn flew patrol missions in North China, based in Guam, but in 1948 he became an flight instructor at Corpus Christi, Texas, then undertook an amphibious warfare course and was assigned a staff assignment, all.
John W. Young - April 21, 1972. Young enjoyed one of the longest and busiest careers of any astronaut in the American space program. He was the first person to fly into space six times and twice journeyed to the moon. Born in San Francisco, California, Young earned a bachelor of science degree in aeronautical engineering with highest honors from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1952. After graduation Young entered the United States Navy, becoming a fighter pilot, and in 1959, a test pilot. He joined NASA in 1962, and flew on Gemini 3, Gemini 10, Apollo 10, Apollo 16, and two space shuttle missions, STS-1, the first shuttle mission, and STS-9, the first shuttle flight with the spacelab laboratory. As of 2003, he still works for NASA in Houston, Texas..
Joe Edwards - after completion of F-14 Tomcat training. Flew fighter escort and reconnaissance combat missions over Lebanon in 1983 and graduated from U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School in 1984. Graduated from U.S. Naval Test Pilot School in 1986 and subsequently worked as project flight test officer and pilot for F-14A(PLUS) and F-14D Full Scale Development. Flew the first Navy flight of the F-14D and a high angle of attack/departure from controlled flight test program for the F-14 airframe/F110 engine integration. Served as Operations and Maintenance Officer in Fighter Squadron 142 1989-1992. Worked as Operations Officer in the Operations Directorate of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Washington, D.C from 1992-1994. He has flown 4000 hours in over 25 different aircraft and logged over 650 carrier-arrested landings. He was selected as an astronaut by NASA.
