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Jerry L. Ross

Jerry L. Ross

Jerry Lynn Ross (born 20 January 1948) is an American astronaut and a veteran of seven space shuttle missions. He holds the current (as of 2004) record for U.S. spacewalks (nine) and cumulative spacewalking time (58 h 18 min). Ross was born and raised in Crown Point, Indiana and studied at Purdue University while earning his commission in the United States Air Force through the university's ROTC program. He participated in engine design studies before training as a test pilot and working on the B-1 Lancer bombers. Ross began working at Johnson Space Center in 1979 and was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1980. He has flown on missions STS-61-B (1985), STS-27 (1988), STS-37 (1991), STS-55 (1993), STS-74 (1995), STS-88 (1998), and STS-110 (2002).

External link


- [http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/ross.html NASA Biography] Ross, Jerry Lynn Ross, Jerry Lynn Ross, Jerry Lynn Ross, Jerry Lynn

1948

1948 (MCMXLVIII) is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar).

Events

January-February


- January 1 - Nationalisation of UK railways to form British Railways. Arab militants lay siege to the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. First day of the Italian republican constitution.
- January 4 - Burma gains its independence from the United Kingdom.
- January 5 - Warner Brothers shows the first color newsreel (Tournament of Roses Parade and the Rose Bowl).
- January 17 - Truce between nationalist Indonesian and Dutch troops in Java
- January 26 - Teigin poison case - Man masquerading as a doctor poisons 12 out of 15 bank employees of the Tokyo branch of Imperial Bank and takes the money; artist Sadamichi Hirasawa is later sentenced for the crime.
- January 30 - Indian pacifist and leader Mahatma Gandhi is murdered by a Hindu extremist.
- January 30 - 1948 Winter Olympics open in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
- February 1 - Soviet Union begins to jam Voice of America broadcasts.
- February 4 - Ceylon (later renamed Sri Lanka) becomes independent within the British Commonwealth. King George VI becomes King of Ceylon.
- February 18 - Eamon de Valera, head of government since 1932, loses power to an opposition coalition. John A. Costello is appointed Taoiseach of Éire (formerly called the Irish Free State) by President O'Kelly.
- February 24 - The Communist Party seizes control of Czechoslovakia.

March-April


- March 8 - The United States Supreme Court rules that religious instruction in public schools violated the Constitution.
- March 10 - Czech foreign minister Jan Masaryk killed in fall from a window of his apartment in Prague. Later communist government rules it "suicide".
- March 17 - Hell's Angels founded in California
- March 20 - First elections in Singapore
- April 1 - Faroe Islands receive autonomy from Denmark
- April 3 - President Harry Truman signs the Marshall Plan which authorizes $5 billion in aid for 16 countries.
- April 7 - The World Health Organization is established by the United Nations.
- April 7 - Buddhist monastery burns in Shanghai - 20 monks dead
- April 9 - Jorge Eliécer Gaitán's assassination provokes a violent riot in Bogotá (the Bogotazo), and a further ten years of violence in all of Colombia (La violencia).
- April 9 - The Deir Yassin massacre takes place in Palestine.

May

Palestine
- May 1 - 213 communists executed in Greece.
- May 2 - Hour of Charm's last broadcast.
- May 11 - Luigi Einaudi becomes President of the Italian Republic.
- May 14 - Israel is declared as an independent state.
- May 14 - The murder of a three-year-old girl in Blackburn, England leads to the fingerprinting of more than 40,000 men in the city in an attempt to find the murderer.
- May 15 - 1948 Arab-Israeli War: Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia attack Israel.
- May 16 - Chaim Weizmann is elected as the first President of Israel.
- May 18 - The First Legislative Yuan of the Republic of China officially convenes in Nanking.
- May 26 - The U.S. Congress passes Public Law 557 which permanently establishes the Civil Air Patrol as the auxiliary of the United States Air Force.
- May 30 - A dike along the Columbia River breaks, obliterating Vanport, Oregon within minutes. 15 people die and tens of thousands are left homeless.

June-July


- June 3 - Palomar Observatory telescope finished in California.
- June 16 - Communist guerillas kill three rubber planters in Malaya.
- June 16 - Three armed men hijack Cathay Pacific passenger plane Miss Macao and shoot the pilot. The plane crashes - one of 27 survives
- June 17 - A Douglas DC-6 carrying United Air Lines Flight 624 crashes near Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, killing all 43 people on board.
- June 18 - State of Emergency declared in Malaysia for communist insurgency - Malayan Emergency begins.
- June 21 - The Deutsche Mark becomes official currency of the Federal Republic of Germany.
- June 24 - Cold War: The Berlin Blockade begins.
- June 28 - Cominform Resolution marks the beginning of the Informbiro period in Yugoslavia and Soviet/Yugoslav split.
- July 5 - British National Health Service Act enacted.
- July 13 - The Coptic and Ethiopian Churches reach an agreement leading to the promotion of the Ethiopian church to the rank of an autocephalous Patriarchate. Five bishops are immediately consecrated by the Patriarch of Alexandria, and the successor to Abuna Qerellos IV is granted the power to consecrate new bishops, who are empowered to elect a new Patriarch for their church.
- July 15 - Attempted assassination of Palmiro Togliatti, general secretary of the Italian Communist Party, incites number of strikes all over the country.
- July 15 - First London, England chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous
- July 20 - Cold War: President Harry S. Truman issues the second peacetime military draft in the United States amid increasing tensions with the Soviet Union (the first peacetime draft occurred in 1940 under President Roosevelt).
- July 24 - Great oil fire in the harbor of Naantali, Finland
- July 26 - U.S. President signs Executive Order 9981, ending racial segregation in the United States Armed Forces.
- July 29 - 1948 Summer Olympics begin in London.
- July 31 - At Idlewild Field in New York, New York International Airport (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport) is dedicated.

August-December


- August 1 - The U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations is founded.
- August 12 - USA recognizes the government of South Korea.
- August 19 - Soviet troops fire at German demonstrators that protest against the Berlin Blockade.
- August 23 - World Council of Churches established.
- September 4 - Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands abdicates for health reasons.
- September 5 - Robert Schuman becomes Prime Minister of France.
- September 6 - Juliana becomes Queen of the Netherlands.
- September 17 - Stern Gang assassinates count Folke Bernadotte.
- October 11 - Cleveland Indians defeat the Boston Braves to win the World Series, four games to two.
- November 2 - U.S. presidential election, 1948: Harry S. Truman defeats Thomas E. Dewey for the US presidency.
- November 12 - In Tokyo, an international war crimes tribunal sentences seven Japanese military and government officials to death, including General Hideki Tojo, for their roles in World War II.
- November 15 - Louis Stephen St. Laurent becomes Canada's twelfth prime minister.
- November 16 - Operation Magic Carpet to transport Jews from Yemen to Israel begins.
- November 17 - Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi divorces his second wife, the former Princess Fawzia of Egypt.
- November 24 - In Venezuela, president Rómulo Betancourt is outsed by a military coup. A military junta takes over the government.
- December 7 - Gary Morris, singer and actor
- December 7 - Mads Vinding, Danish bassist
- December 10 - United Nations General Assembly adopts Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
- December 26 - Last Soviet troops withdraw from North Korea.
- December 28 - Member of Muslim Brotherhood assassinates Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmud Fahmi Nokrashi.
- December 30 - The play Kiss Me, Kate opens for the first of 1,077 performances.
- December 31 - 1948 Arab-Israeli War: Israeli troops drive Egyptians from Negev.

Undated


- Empire Windrush immigrant ship arrives in Britain
- Civil war in Costa Rica
- Civil war in Colombia
- Rope (film) released

Unknown date


- Porsche is founded.
- Miranda, the innermost moon of Uranus, is discovered by Gerard Kuiper.
- Casimir effect discovered by Dutch physicist Hendrik Casimir.
- Tunnel of Vielha is opened in Val d'Aran, Spanish Pyrenees.
- Fresh Kills, world's largest landfill, opens in Staten Island, New York.
- The law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom is founded.
- Brandeis University is founded.
- Oakridge Transit Centre opened in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Births

January-February


- January 2 - Mary Archer, British scientist
- January 2 - Deborah Watling, British actress
- January 7 - Kenny Loggins, American singer
- January 10 - Donald Fagen, American keyboardist
- January 10 - Mischa Maisky, Latvian cellist
- January 14 - Carl Weathers, American football player and actor
- January 14 - T-Bone Burnett, American record producer and musician
- January 15 - Ronnie Van Zant, American musician (d. 1977)
- January 16 - John Carpenter, American film director and composer
- January 17 - Davíð Oddsson, Prime Minister of Iceland
- January 19 - Frank McKenna, Premier of New Brunswick and Canadian Ambassador
- January 27 - Mikhail Baryshnikov, Russian-born dancer
- January 28 - Charles Taylor, Liberian president
- January 29 - Marc Singer, Canadian actor
- January 31 - Muneo Suzuki, Japanese politician
- February 1 - Elisabeth Sladen, British actress
- February 3 - Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo, East Timorean Catholic bishop, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
- February 4 - Alice Cooper, American musician
- February 5 - Christopher Guest, American actor, writer, director, and composer
- February 5 - V. Alexander Stefan, American physicist, educator, and writer
- February 14 - Teller, American magician
- February 24 - J. Jayalalithaa, Indian politician
- February 25 - Danny Denzongpa, Indian actor
- February 28 - Steven Chu, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
- February 28 - Mike Figgis, American director, writer, and composer
- February 28 - Bernadette Peters, American actress and singer
- February 28 - Mercedes Ruehl, American actress

March-April


- March 1 - Burning Spear, Jamaican singer and musician
- March 2 - Jeff Kennett, Australian politician
- March 2 - R. T. Crowley, pioneer of electronic commerce
- March 9 - Jeffrey Osborne, American singer
- March 12 - James Taylor, American musician
- March 15 - Sérgio Vieira de Mello, Brazilian diplomat (d. 2003)
- March 17 - William Gibson, Canadian writer
- March 20 - John de Lancie, American actor
- March 20 - Bobby Orr, Canadian hockey player
- March 22 - Andrew Lloyd Webber, English composer
- March 22 - Wolf Blitzer, American television journalist
- March 26 - Steven Tyler, American singer (Aerosmith)
- March 28 - Dianne Wiest, American actress
- March 31 - Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States
- March 31 - Rhea Perlman, American actress
- April 1 - Jimmy Cliff, Jamaican musician
- April 15 - Michael Kamen, American composer (d. 2003)
- (April 23)-
- April 29 - Michael Karoli, German musician (d. 2001)

May-July


- May 8 - Felicity Lott, English soprano
- May 11 - Shigeru Izumiya, Japanese musician
- May 12 - Steve Winwood, English singer
- May 14 - Bob Woolmer, British cricket coach
- May 15 - Brian Eno, English musician and record producer
- May 19 - Grace Jones, Jamaican singer and actress
- May 21 - Leo Sayer, English musician
- May 26 - Stevie Nicks, American singer and songwriter (Fleetwood Mac)
- May 29 - Michael Berkeley, British composer
- May 31 - John Bonham, British drummer (Led Zeppelin) (d. 1980)
- June 2 - Todd Rundgren, American singer and record producer
- June 13 - Garnet Bailey, Canadian hockey player and scout
- June 17 - Dave Concepcion, Venezuelan baseball player
- June 19 - Phylicia Rashad, American actress
- June 20 - Ludwig Scotty, President of Nauru
- June 21 - Lionel Rose, Australian boxer
- June 21 - Andrzej Sapkowski, Polish writer
- July 8 - Raffi Cavoukian, Egyptian-born singer
- July 16 - Pinchas Zukerman, Israeli violinist
- July 18 - Hartmut Michel, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
- July 21 - Ed Hinton, American sportswriter
- July 21 - Cat Stevens, English musician
- July 21 - Garry Trudeau, American cartoonist
- July 25 - Peggy Fleming, American figure skater
- July 28 - Sally Struthers, American actress
- July 30 - Jean Reno, French actor

August-December


- August 2 - Dennis Prager, American radio talk show host and author
- August 3 - Jean-Pierre Raffarin, Prime Minister of France
- August 13 - Kathleen Battle, American soprano
- August 15 - Uschi Digard, American erotic actress and figure model
- August 20 - Robert Plant, English singer (Led Zeppelin)
- August 30 - Lewis Black, American comedian
- September 4 - Samuel Hui, Hong Kong singer
- September 5 - Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Austrian diplomat and politician
- September 10 - Bob Lanier, American basketball player
- September 10 - Margaret Trudeau, First Lady of Canada
- September 13 - Nell Carter, American singer and actress (d. 2003)
- September 17 - John Ritter, American actor (d. 2003)
- September 22 - Denis Burke, Australian politician
- September 24 - Heinz Chur, German composer
- September 27 - Michele Dotrice, English actor
- September 29 - Bryant Gumbel, American television broadcaster
- October 1 - Sir Sir Peter Blake New Zealand yachtsman (d. 2001)
- October 2 - Avery Brooks, American television actor
- October 2 - Chris LeDoux, American singer and rodeo star (d. 2005)
- October 8 - Johnny Ramone, American guitarist (The Ramones) (d. 2004)
- October 9 - Jackson Browne, American musician
- October 13 - Ted Poe, American politician
- October 17 - George Wendt, American television actor
- November 1 - Jim Steinman, American songwriter and producer
- November 5 - William Daniel Phillips, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
- November 10 - Vincent Schiavelli, American actor
- November 14 - Charles, Prince of Wales
- November 16 - Mutt Lange, Rhodesian-born record producer
- November 17 - Howard Dean, American politician
- November 20 - John R. Bolton, U.S. Ambassador to the UN
- November 20 - Barbara Hendricks, American-born soprano
- December 3 - Ozzy Osbourne, British singer
- December 6 - JoBeth Williams, American actress
- December 10 - Abu Abbas, founder of the Palestine Liberation Front (d. 2004)
- December 21 - Willi Resetarits, Austrian musician and cabaret artist
- December 27 - Gérard Depardieu, French actor

Unknown date


- Maurizio Gucci Italian business man and murder victim (d. 1995)
- Edward Rutherfurd, British novelist

Deaths


- January 21 - Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, Italian composer (b. 1876)
- January 30 - Mohandas Gandhi, Indian independence movement leader (assassinated) (b. 1869)
- January 30 - Orville Wright, American co-inventor of the airplane (b. 1871)
- February 2 - Bevil Rudd, South African athlete (b. 1894)
- February 11 - Sergy Eisenstein, Russian film director (b. 1898)
- February 23 - John Robert Gregg, Irish-born inventor of shorthand (b. 1866)
- March 6 - Ross Lockridge, Jr., American novelist (suicide) (b. 1914)
- March 10 - Jan Masaryk, Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia (b. 1886)
- March 31 - Egon Erwin Kisch, Austrian journalist and author (b. 1885)
- April 9 - Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, Colombian politician (b. 1903)
- April 17 - Suzuki Kantaro, Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1867)
- May 15 - Father Edward J. Flanagan, Irish-born priest and founder of Boys Town (b. 1886)
- May 28 - Unity Mitford, British friend of Hitler (b. 1914)
- June 25 - William C. Lee, American general (b. 1895)
- July 5 - Georges Bernanos, French writer (b. 1888)
- July 15 - John J. Pershing, American general (b. 1860)
- July 23 - David Wark Griffith, American film director (b. 1875)
- August 12 - Harry Brearley, English inventor of stainless steel (b. 1871)
- August 16 - Babe Ruth, baseball player (b. 1895)
- September 2 - Sylvanus G. Morley, American scholar and World War I spy (b. 1883)
- September 11 - Muhammed Ali Jinnah, first Governor-General of Pakistan (b. 1876)
- October 24 - Franz Lehár, Hungarian composer (b. 1870)
- November 28 - D.D. Sheehan, Irish politician (b. 1873)
- December 23 - Japanese war leaders (hanged):
  - Kenji Doihara, spy (b. 1883)
  - Koki Hirota, Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1878)
  - Iwane Matsui, general (b. 1878)
  - Itagaki Seishiro, military officer (b. 1885)
  - Hideki Tojo, general (b. 1884)
- December 31 - Sir Malcolm Campbell, English land and water racer (b. 1885)

Nobel Prizes


- Physics - Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett
- Chemistry - Arne Wilhelm Kaurin Tiselius
- Medicine - Paul Hermann Müller
- Literature - T. S. Eliot
- Peace - not awarded Category:1948 als:1948 ko:1948년 ms:1948 ja:1948年 simple:1948 th:พ.ศ. 2491

Space Shuttle

). For the first two missions only, the external fuel tank spray-on foam insulation (SOFI) was painted white. Subsequent missions have featured an unpainted tank thus exposing the orange/rust colored foam insulation. This resulted in a weight saving of over 1,000 lb (450 kg), a savings that translated directly to added payload capacity to orbit.]] : This article is about the NASA Space Shuttle. For information on the Soviet Space Shuttles, see the articles Shuttle Buran, Ptichka, Shuttle 2.01, Shuttle 2.02 and Shuttle 2.03. NASA's Space Shuttle, officially called Space Transportation System (STS), is the United States government's sole manned launch vehicle currently in service. The Space Shuttle orbiter was manufactured by North American Rockwell, now part of the Boeing Company. Martin Marietta (now part of Lockheed Martin) designed the external fuel tank and Morton Thiokol (now part of Alliant Techsystems (ATK)) designed the solid rocket boosters. The Shuttle is the first orbital spacecraft designed for partial reusability. It carries large payloads to various orbits, provides crew rotation for the International Space Station (ISS), and performs servicing missions. While the vehicle was designed with the capacity to recover satellites and other payloads from orbit and return them to Earth, this capacity has not been used often; it is, however, an important use of the Space Shuttle in the context of the ISS program, as only very small amounts of experimental material, hardware needing to be repaired, and trash can be returned by Soyuz. Each Shuttle was designed for a projected lifespan of 100 launches or 10-years operational life. The program started in the late 1960s and has dominated NASA's manned operations since the mid-1970s. According to the Vision for Space Exploration, use of the Space Shuttle will be focused on completing assembly of the ISS in 2010, after which it will be replaced by the yet-to-be-developed Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV). However, following the STS-114 return-to-flight mission in August 2005, the Shuttle program is currently grounded pending repairs and the solution of outstanding safety issues. Further aggravating the shuttle's return to space, also in August 2005, the Space Shuttle external tank construction site, Michoud Assembly Facility located in New Orleans, Louisiana was damaged by Hurricane Katrina, with all work shifts cancelled up to September 26, 2005. This could potentially set back further Shuttle flights by more than two months. The NASA Chief Administrator Michael Griffin has recently suggested the decision to develop the Space Shuttle and International Space Station was a mistake by saying, "It is now commonly accepted that was not the right path. We are now trying to change the path while doing as little damage as we can." [http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050928/1a_bottomstrip28.art.htm]

History

The Shuttle decision

NASA had conducted a series of paper projects throughout the 1960s on the topic of reusable spacecraft to replace their expedient "one-off" systems like Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. Meanwhile, the U.S. Air Force had a continuing interest in smaller systems with more rapid turn-around times, and were involved in their own spaceplane project, the X-20 Dyna-Soar. In several instances groups from both worked together to investigate the state of the art. With the major Apollo development effort winding down in the second half of the 1960s, NASA started looking to the future of the space program. They envisioned an ambitious program consisting of a large space station being launched on huge boosters, served by a reusable logistics "space shuttle", both providing services for a permanently manned Lunar colony and eventual manned missions to Mars. However, in reality, NASA found itself with a rapidly plunging budget. Rather than trying to adapt their long-term future to their dire financial situation, they attempted to save as many of the individual projects as possible. The mission to Mars was rapidly dismissed, but the Space Station and Shuttle conserved. Eventually only one of them could be saved, so it stood to reason that a low-cost Shuttle system would be the better option, because without it a large station would never be affordable. A number of designs were proposed, but many of them were complex and varied widely in their systems. An attempt to re-simplify was made in the form of the "DC-3" by one of the few people left in NASA with the political importance to accomplish it, Maxime Faget, who had designed the Mercury capsule, among other vehicles. The DC-3 was a small craft with a 20,000-pound (9 tonne) (or less) payload, a four-man capacity, and limited maneuverability. At a minimum, the DC-3 provided a baseline "workable" (but not significantly advanced) system by which other systems could be compared for price/performance compromises. Mercury The defining moment for NASA was when they, in desperation to see their only remaining project saved, went to the Air Force for its blessing. NASA asked that the USAF place all of their future launches on the Shuttle instead of their current expendable launchers (like the Titan II), in return for which they would no longer have to continue spending money upgrading those designs — the Shuttle would provide more than enough capability. The Air Force reluctantly agreed, but only after demanding a large increase in capability to allow for launching their projected spy satellites (mirrors are heavy). These were quite large, weighing an estimated 40,000 pounds (18 tonnes), and needed to be put into polar orbits, which require higher energies than lower inclination orbits; and since the Air Force also wanted to be able to abort after a single orbit (as did NASA), and in addition land at the launch site (unlike NASA), the spacecraft would also require the ability to maneuver significantly to either side of its orbital track to adjust for launch-point rotational drift while in polar orbit — for example, in a 90-minute orbit, Vandenberg AFB would drift over 1,000 miles (1,600 km), whereas in more equatorially aligned orbits, the required cross-range would be less than 250 mi/400 km. This large "cross-range" capability for polar orbits meant the craft had to have a greater lift-to-drag ratio than originally planned, requiring the addition of bigger, heavier wings. The result was that the simple "DC-3" was clearly irrelevant because it had neither the cargo capacity nor the cross-range the Air Force demanded. In fact, all existing designs were far too small, as a 40,000-pound (18 tonnes) delivery to polar orbit equates to a 65,000-pound (29 tonne) delivery to an eastwardly launched orbit with typical 28-degree inclination. Additionally, any design using simple straight or foldout wings was not going to meet the cross-range requirements, so any future design would require a more complex, heavier delta wing. Of further concern, any increase in the weight of the upper portion of a launch vehicle, which had just occurred, required an even bigger increase in the capability of the lower stage used to launch it. Suddenly, the two-stage system had grown in size to something larger than the Saturn V, and the complexity and costs to develop it soared. While all of this was going on, others were suggesting a completely different approach to the future. They stated that NASA would fare better using the existing Saturn to launch their space station, supplied and manned using modified Gemini capsules on top of the Air Force's newer Titan II-M. The cost of development for this looked to be considerably less than the Shuttle alone, and would have a large space station in orbit earlier. In reply, advocates of the Shuttle answered that given enough launches, a reusable system would more than pay for the cost of development when compared with the launch costs of disposable rockets. Another factor in the cost-benefit analysis was inflation, and in the 1970s this was high enough that the payback from the development had to happen very quickly to see a positive return. Hence, a high launch rate was needed to make the system economically feasible. But it was infeasible that a space station or Air Force payloads could demand such rates (roughly one or two a week), so they insisted and suggested that all future U.S. launches would take place on the Shuttle, once built. In order to do this, the cost of launching the Shuttle would have to be lower than any other system, with the exception of very small rockets, ignored for practical reasons, and very large boosters, which were rare and excessively expensive in any case. With a baseline project now gelling, NASA started to work through the process of obtaining stable funding for the five years the project would take to develop. Once again, they found themselves in an increasingly deplorable situation. With the budgets being pressed by inflation in the U.S. and the Vietnam War abroad, Congress and the Administration were generally uninterested in long-term projects such as space exploration. Some members were therefore looking to further cut NASA's budget; but with a single long-term project confirmed, they could do little in terms of cutting whole projects — the Shuttle was the single one left, and its cancellation would mean that there would be no U.S. manned space program by 1980. Instead, they looked to reduce the year-to-year costs of development to a stable figure. That is, they wished to see the development budgets spread out over several more years. This was somewhat impractical and in conflict with the planned funding and development. The result was another intense series of redesigns in which the reusable booster was eventually abandoned due to its high price. Unsurprisingly, some designs for reusable boosters amounted to vehicles the size of the then-new Boeing 747, which would have to fly faster than the record-holding — and considerably smaller — X-15 rocket plane. Instead, a series of simpler rockets would launch the system and then drop away for recovery. Another change was that the fuel for the Shuttle itself was placed in an external tank instead of internal tanks as in the previous designs. This allowed a larger payload bay in an otherwise much smaller craft, although it also meant throwing away the tankage after each launch. The last remaining debate was over the nature of the boosters. NASA had been looking at no less than four solutions to this problem: one a development of the existing Saturn lower stage, another using simple pressure-fed liquid-fuel engines of a new design, and finally either a large, single solid rocket, or two (or more) smaller ones. The decision was eventually made on the smaller solids due to their lower development costs (a decision that had been echoed throughout the whole Shuttle program). While the liquid-fueled systems provided better performance and enhanced safety, delivery capability to orbit is much more a function of the upper-stage performance and weight than the lower; the money was hence spent elsewhere.

Development

Vietnam War The Shuttle program was launched on January 5, 1972, when President Richard M. Nixon announced that NASA would proceed with the development of a reusable, low-cost Space Shuttle system. The project was already to take longer than originally anticipated due to the year-to-year funding caps. Nevertheless, work started quickly and several test articles were available within a few years. Most notable among these was the first complete Orbiter, originally to be known as Constitution. However, a massive write-in campaign from fans of the Star Trek television series convinced the White House to change the name to Enterprise. Amid great fanfare, the Enterprise was rolled out on September 17, 1976, and later conducted a successful series of glide-approach and landing tests that were the first real validation of the design. The first fully functional Shuttle Orbiter, built in Palmdale, California, was the Columbia, which was delivered to Kennedy Space Center on March 25, 1979, and was first launched on April 12, 1981—the 20th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's space flight—with a crew of two. Challenger was delivered to KSC in July 1982, Discovery was delivered in November 1983, and Atlantis was delivered in April 1985. The Shuttle was meant to visit Space Station Freedom, announced in 1984, an ambitious and much-delayed project later downsized and merged into the International Space Station program. Challenger was destroyed in an explosion during launch on January 28, 1986, with the loss of all seven astronauts on board. Endeavour was built to replace it (using spare parts originally intended for the other Orbiters) and delivered in May 1991. Columbia was lost, with all seven crew members, during reentry on February 1, 2003, and has not been replaced.

Description

2003 The Shuttle has a large 60 by 15 ft (18 by 4.6 m) payload bay, filling most of the fuselage. The payload bay doors have heat radiators mounted on their inner surfaces, and so are kept open for thermal control while the Shuttle is in orbit. Thermal control is also maintained by adjusting the orientation of the Shuttle relative to Earth and Sun. Inside the payload bay is the Remote Manipulator System, also known as the Canadarm, a robot arm used to retrieve and deploy payloads. Until the loss of Columbia, the Canadarm had been used only on those missions where it was needed. Since the arm is a crucial part of the Thermal Protection Inspection procedures now required for Shuttle flights, it will probably be included on all future flights. The Space Shuttle system has undergone numerous improvements over the years. The Orbiter has changed its thermal protection system several times in order to save weight and ease workload. The original silica-based ceramic tiles need to be removed for inspection for damage after every flight, and they also soak up water and thus need to be protected from the rain. The latter problem was initially fixed by spraying the tiles with Scotchgard, but a custom solution was adopted. Later, many of the tiles on the cooler portions of the Shuttle were replaced by large blankets of insulating feltlike material, which means huge areas (notably the cargo bay area) no longer have to be inspected as often. Internally the Shuttle remains largely similar to the original design, with the exception that the avionics continue to be improved. The original systems were "hardened" IBM 360 computers connected to analog displays in the cockpit similar to contemporary airliners like the DC-10. Today the cockpits have been replaced with "all glass" systems and the computers themselves are many times faster. The computers use the HAL/S programming language. In the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project tradition, programmable calculators are carried as well (originally the HP-41C). In addition to the "glass cockpit," several improvements have been made for safety reasons after the Challenger explosion, including a crew escape system for use in a narrow range of situations that require the Orbiter to "ditch." With the coming of the Space Station, the Orbiter's internal airlocks are being replaced with external docking systems to allow for a greater amount of cargo to be stored on the Shuttle's mid-deck during Station resupply missions. HP-41C The Space Shuttle Main Engines have had several improvements to enhance reliability and power. This is why during launch you may hear curious phrases such as "Go to throttle-up at 106%." This does not mean the engines are being run over limit. The 100% figure is the power level for the original main engines. The actual engine contract requirement was for 109%. The original flight engines could handle 102%. The 109% number was finally reached in flight hardware with the Block II engines in 2001. For STS-1 and STS-2 the external tank was painted white to protect the insulation that covers much of the tank, but improvements and testing showed that it was not required. This saved considerable weight, and thereby increases the payload the Orbiter can carry into orbit. Additional weight was saved by removing some of the internal "stringers" in the hydrogen tank that proved unnecessary. The resulting "light-weight external tank" has been used on the vast majority of Shuttle missions. STS-91 saw the first flight of the "super light-weight external tank". This version of the tank is made of the 2195 Aluminum-Lithium alloy. It weighs 7,500 lb (3.4 t) less than the last run of lightweight tanks. As the Shuttle cannot fly unmanned, each of these improvements has been "tested" on operational flights. And, of course, the SRBs (Solid Rocket Boosters) have undergone improvements as well. Notable is the adding of a third O-ring seal to the joints between the segments, which occurred after the Challenger accident. A number of other SRB improvements were planned in order to improve performance and safety, but never came to be. These culminated in the considerably simpler, lower cost, probably safer and better performing Advanced Solid Rocket Booster which was to have entered production in the early to mid-1990s to support the Space Station, but was later cancelled to save money after the expenditure of $2.2 billion. The loss of the ASRB program forced the development of the SLWT, which provides some of the increased payload capability, while not providing any of the safety improvements. In addition the Air Force developed their own much lighter single-piece design using a filament-wound system, but this too was cancelled. A cargo-only, unmanned variant of the Shuttle has been variously proposed and rejected since the 1980s. It is called the Shuttle-C and would trade re-usability for cargo capability with large potential savings from reusing technology developed for the Space Shuttle.

Components

The Space Shuttle consists of three main components: the reusable Orbiter itself, a large, brown, expendable external fuel tank, and a pair of white, reusable solid-fuel booster rockets. The fuel tank and booster rockets are jettisoned during ascent, so only the Orbiter goes into orbit.
- The reusable Orbiter Vehicle (OV), with a large payload bay and three main engines (fed from the external tank) and an orbital maneuvering system with two smaller engines (used after jettisoning the external tank). There are currently three orbiters, rotated between missions.
- A large expendable external fuel tank (ET) containing liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen (at the forward and aft ends, respectively) for the three main engines of the Orbiter; it is discarded 8.5 minutes after launch at an altitude of 60 nautical miles (111 km) and breaks up in the atmosphere upon reentry. The pieces fall in the ocean and are not recovered.
- A pair of reusable solid-fuel rocket boosters (SRB); the propellant consists mainly of ammonium perchlorate (oxidizer, 70% by weight) and aluminum (fuel, 16 %); they are separated two minutes after launch at a height of 36 nautical miles (67 km) and are recovered after landing in the ocean, their fall slowed by parachutes. Initial plans for the so-called Space Transportation System included space tugs and extra fuel tanks for the orbital-maneuvering-system engines, among many other concepts. None of this hardware has actually ever been built.

Technical data

parachute Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), 1998 (NASA)]]
- System stack height: 184.2 ft (56.14 m)
- Orbiter length: 122.17 ft (37.236 m)
  - Wingspan: 78.06 ft (23.79 m)
- Gross liftoff: 4.5 million lb (2,040,000 kg)
  - ET: 1.7 million lb (751,000 kg)
  - SRBs: 1.3 million lb (590,000 kg) each (x 2)
  - Orbiter: 240,000 lb (109,000 kg)
- Total liftoff thrust: 7.82 million lbf (34.8 MN)
  - SSMEs: 400,000 lbf (1.8 MN) each (x 3) = 1.2 million lbf (5.3 MN)
  - SRBs: 3.30 million lbf (14.7 MN) each (x 2) = 6.61 million lbf (29.4 MN)
- Maximum landing: 230,000 lb (104,000 kg)
- Maximum launch payload: 63,500 lb (28,800 kg)
- Operational altitude: 100 to 520 nmi (185 to 1000 km)
- Speed: 25,404 ft/s (7743 m/s, 27 875 km/h, 17 321 mi/h)
- Passenger capacity: 10 Astronauts (crews other than 5 to 7 are uncommon)

Normal ascent

Initially the main engines are lit and checked out; if successful, the SRBs are lit and the vehicle is then committed to takeoff. At takeoff the vast majority (~90%) of the thrust is provided by the SRBs. Shortly after clearing the tower the Shuttle rotates so that the vehicle is below the main tank and SRBs. The vehicle climbs in a progressively flattening arc, accelerating as the weight of the SRBs and main tank reduces. To reach orbit, the vehicle needs to reach high altitude, but more importantly it needs to achieve mach 25 sideways, and so must spend as much time as possible accelerating horizontally. Around a point called "max-q", where the aerodynamic forces are at their maximum, the main engines are temporarily throttled back to avoid overspeeding and hence overstressing the Shuttle (particularly vulnerable parts such as the wings). 126 seconds after launch, the SRBs thrust reduces and then explosive bolts release them from the vehicle and they fall back to the ocean to be reused. The Shuttle then begins accelerating to orbit on the Space Shuttle Main Engines. The vehicle at that point in the flight has a thrust to weight ratio of less than one — the main engines actually have insufficient thrust to exceed the force of gravity, and the vertical speed given to it by the SRBs temporarily decreases. However, as the burn continues, the weight of the propellant reduces, the ever-lighter vehicle produces more and more acceleration until the thrust to weight ratio exceeds 1 again and the vehicle can hold itself up. The vehicle continues to climb and takes on a somewhat nose-up angle to the horizon — it uses the main engines to gain and then maintain altitude whilst it accelerates horizontally towards orbit. Finally, in the last tens of seconds towards the end of the main engine burn, the mass of the vehicle is low enough, that the acceleration is throttled back to keep the vehicle accelerating at no more than 3g, largely for astronaut health and comfort. Before complete depletion of propellant (running dry would destroy the engines) the main engines are shutdown, and the empty main tank is released by firing explosive bolts. The tank then falls to largely burn up in the atmosphere, with some fragments falling into the Indian Ocean. At this point the Shuttle is still slightly suborbital, since the trajectory intersects the atmosphere. The Shuttle then fires the OMS engines to circularize the orbit and avoid reentry.

Ascent abort modes

There are five abort modes available during ascent, classified as intact aborts and contingency aborts [http://www.shuttlepresskit.com/STS-93/REF86.htm]. The choice of abort mode depends on estimates of what the orbiter's situation would be at the time of main engine cutoff (TMECO). The abort modes cover a wide range of potential problems, but the most common expected problem is that the orbiter failing to achieve orbital speed by TMECO, technically known as "MECO underspeed".

Intact abort modes

There are four intact abort modes. Intact aborts are designed to provide a safe return of the orbiter to a planned landing site.
- Return To Launch Site (RTLS) — has never been tried, but would involve turning the Shuttle around while continuing to burn the SSMEs, jettisoning the ET, and gliding to a landing at Kennedy Space Center.
- East Coast Abort Landing (ECAL) — involves landing at predetermined locations on the east coast of North America in the U.S. and Canada. This has never occurred.
- Transoceanic Abort Landing (TAL) — involves landing at predetermined locations in Africa and western Europe. This has never occurred.
- Abort to Orbit (ATO) — occurs when the intended orbit cannot be reached but a stable alternate orbit is possible. This occurred on STS-51-F mission; required mission replanning, but the mission was nevertheless declared a success.
- Abort Once Around (AOA) — occurs when entering a stable orbit is not possible. This has never occurred.

Contingency abort mode

Contingency aborts are designed to permit flight crew survival following more severe failures when an intact abort is not possible. A contingency abort would generally result in a ditch operation. To the extent that the hydrogen and oxygen are not needed, they are used up deliberately to allow the ET to be discarded safely. The designated sites for ECAL are Bangor, Maine, Wilmington, North Carolina; MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina; NAS Oceana; Wallops Flight Facility; Dover Air Force Base; Atlantic City, New Jersey; Gabreski, New York; Otis ANGB; Pease International Airport (all USA); Halifax; Stephenville; St John's; Gander; and Goose Bay (all Canada). A TAL would be declared between roughly T+2:30 minutes (liftoff plus 2 minutes, 30 seconds) and Main Engine Cutoff (MECO), about T+8:30 minutes. The Shuttle would then land at a predesignated friendly airstrip in Africa or Europe. Potential sites include Istres Air Base in France; Banjul International Airport in The Gambia; and Zaragoza Air Base and Morón Air Base in Spain. Prior to a Shuttle launch, two of them are selected depending on the flight plan, and staffed with standby personnel in case they are used. The list of TAL sites has changed over time; most recently Ben Guerir Air Base in Morocco was eliminated due to terrorism concerns. Past TAL sites have included Kano, Nigeria; Easter Island (for Vandenberg launches); Rota, Spain; Casablanca, Morocco; and Dakar, Senegal. Emergency landing sites for the Orbiter include Lajes, Beja, (both Portugal), Keflavik (Iceland), Shannon International Airport (Ireland), RAF Fairford (UK), Köln Bonn Airport (Germany), Ankara (Turkey), Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), Diego Garcia (British Indian Ocean Territory). Were the Orbiter unable to reach a runway, it could ditch in water, or could land on terrain other than a landing site. It would be unlikely for the flight crew still on board to survive. However, if the Orbiter ascent were aborted in a narrow set of circumstances in which controlled gliding flight could be achieved, the In-flight Crew Escape System would allow the crew to escape with parachutes. A special Escape Pole would take each crewmember on a trajectory beneath the Orbiter's left wing. In the two disasters, things went wrong so fast that little could be done. In the case of Challenger, the SRBs were still burning as they tore free from the rest of the stack. The orbiter disintegrated almost instantly because of aerodynamic stresses as the stack broke up. The Columbia disaster occurred high in the atmosphere during reentry. Even if the crew had been able to bail out, they would have been killed by the heat generated by the friction of the air.

Shuttles

Columbia disaster, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour. Not illustrated: Enterprise and Pathfinder.]] Individual Orbiters are both named, in a manner similar to ships, and numbered using the NASA Orbiter Vehicle Designation system. Whilst all three are externally very similar, they have minor internal differences; new equipment is fitted on a rotating basis as they are maintained, and the newer Orbiters tend to be structurally lighter.
- Handling test article designed with no spaceflight capability whatsoever:
  - Pathfinder (Orbiter Simulator, no series number)
- Main propulsion test article, with no spaceflight capability whatsoever:
  - MPTA-ET (External Tank) which is now attached to Pathfinder
  - MPTA-098 suffered major damage due to engine failure.
- Structural test article, with no spaceflight capability:
  - STA-099 which became Challenger
- Test vehicle suitable only for glide/landing tests, with no spaceflight capability without major refit:
  - Enterprise (OV-101)
- Lost in accidents (see below):
  - Challenger (OV-099, ex-STA-099) - destroyed after liftoff - January 28, 1986
  - Columbia (OV-102) - destroyed during reentry February 1, 2003
- In use:
  - Atlantis (OV-104)
  - Discovery (OV-103)
  - Endeavour (OV-105)

Applications


- Crew rotation of the ISS
- Manned servicing missions, such as to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)
- Manned experiments in LEO
- Carry to LEO:
  - Large satellites — these have included the HST
  - Components for the construction of the ISS
  - Supplies
- Carry satellites with a booster, the Payload Assist Module (PAM-D) or the Inertial Upper Stage (IUS), to the point where the booster sends the satellite to:
  - A higher Earth orbit; these have included:
    - Chandra X-ray Observatory
    - Many TDRS satellites
    - Two DSCS-III (Defense Satellite Communications System) communications satellites in one mission
    - A Defense Support Program satellite
  - An interplanetary orbit; these have included:
    - Magellan probe
    - Galileo spacecraft
    - Ulysses probe

Flight statistics (as of August 25, 2005)

† Satellites deployed

- This was flight STS-80, during November 1996.

Accidents

Two Shuttles have been destroyed in 114 missions, both with the loss of the entire crew of seven:
- Challenger — lost 73 seconds after liftoff, January 28, 1986; see STS-51-L.
- Columbia — lost during reentry, February 1, 2003; see Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. This gives a 2% death rate per astronaut per flight. While the technical details of the accidents are quite different, the organisational problems show remarkable similarities. In both cases events happened which were not planned for or anticipated. In both cases, instead of dealing with the issue as unexpected and in need of complete explanation, at significant cost in time and money, the lazy attitude was to allow the unexpected events to happen as the damage done was not deemed to endanger the shuttle, although this was not actually known to be the case. In the case of Challenger, an O-ring which should not have eroded at all did, in fact, erode on earlier shuttle launches. Instead of finding out why, it was noted that it had not eroded by more than 30%, and the assumption was made was that this was not a hazard as there was a safety margin of a factor of 3. Despite repeated pleas by NASA's engineers to cancel or reschedule the launch, the managers allowed the shuttle to launch. Challenger's O-ring eroded right through, fatally, shortly after its last launch. Columbia failed as a consequence of damage caused by being struck by a piece of foam which broke off from the bipod during ascent. The foam had not been designed or expected to break off, but had been observed in the past to do so without incident.

Retrospect

Space Shuttle Columbia disaster

Costs

While the Shuttle has been a reasonably successful launch vehicle, it has been unable to meet its goal of radically reducing flight launch costs, as the average launch expenditures during its operations up to 2005 accumulates to $1.3 billion [http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/space_policy/], a rather large figure compared to the initial projections of $10 to $20 million. The total cost of the program has been $145 billion as of early 2005 ($112 billion of which was incurred while the program was operational) and is estimated at $174 billion when the Shuttle retires in 2010. NASA's budget for 2005 allocates 30%, or $5 billion, to Space Shuttle operations. [http://www.space.com/news/shuttle_cost_050211.html] The original mission of the Shuttle was to operate at a high flight rate, at low cost, and with high reliability. It was intended to improve greatly on the previous generation of single-use manned and unmanned vehicles. Although it did operate as the world's first reusable crew-carrying spacecraft, it did not improve on those parameters in any meaningful way, and is considered by some to have failed in its original purpose. Although the design is radically different from the original concept, the project was still supposed to meet the upgraded USAF goals, and to be much cheaper to fly in general. One reason behind this apparent failure appears to be inflation. During the 1970s the U.S. suffered from severe inflation, driving up costs about 200% by 1980. In contrast, the rate between 1990 and 2000 was only 34% in total. This magnified the development costs of the Shuttle. The original process by which contractors bid for Shuttle work has also inflated overall project costs as there were political and industrial pressures to spread Shuttle work around. For instance, the need for a single-piece SRB design was dismissed as only one company, Aerojet, was located close enough to the launch site to make this viable. The company that secured the SRB contract, Morton Thiokol, is based in Utah, necessitating the modular design that contributed to the Challenger loss. Ironically, the U.S. aerospace mergers of the 1990s mean that the vast majority of the STS contracts are now held by a single company (Boeing). However, this does not explain the high costs of the continued operations of the Shuttle. Even accounting for inflation, the launch costs on the original estimates should be about $100 million today. The remaining $400 million arises from the operational details of maintaining and servicing the Shuttle fleet, which have turned out to be tremendously more expensive than anticipated. Some of this can be attributed to operating beyond the 10-year anticipated lifespan of each Shuttle. The main reasons for higher costs can be ascribed to:
  • the reentry tiles turned out to be very expensive (averaging about 1 person week to replace a tile, with hundreds damaged with each launch)
  • engines were highly complex and marginal necessitating removal and maintenance after each flight
  • launch rate is much lower than ideal (studies showed that launching 50 times per year would have dramatically cut costs- the current shuttle launches about 4 times per year- the written record shows that NASA never installed any infrastructure to launch more than 12 times per year)
  • original costs of $118/lb were marginal costs, not total costs

    Shuttle operations

    When originally conceived, the Shuttle was to operate similarly to an airliner. After landing, the Orbiter would be checked out and start "mating" to the rest of the system (the ET and SRBs), and be ready for launch in as little as two weeks. Instead, this turnaround process takes months. Decisions to cut short-term development costs have resulted in a continued high-cost maintenance schedule. The documentation requirements have become extremely thorough. Dramatically increasing the number of support personnel needed to launch also caused a significant increase in costs. This was exacerbated in the aftermath of the Challenger disaster. Even simple changes require significant amounts of documentation. This paperwork results from the fact that, unlike current expendable launch vehicles, the Space Shuttle is manned and has no escape systems mode for most of the flight regime, and therefore any accident which would result in the loss of a booster would also result in the loss of the crew. Because loss of crew is unacceptable, the primary focus of the Shuttle program is to return the crew to Earth safely, which can conflict with other goals, namely to launch payloads cheaply. Furthermore, because there are cases where there are no abort modes — no potential way to prevent failure from becoming critical — many pieces of hardware simply must function perfectly and so must be carefully inspected before each flight. The result is a massively inflated labor cost, with around 25,000 workers in Shuttle operations and labor costs of about $1 billon per year. Initially NASA hoped the Shuttle's manned capacity would be justified as a "space taxi" to a revived Skylab or a Saturn V-launched "Skylab 2". With the go-ahead for the large, modular "Freedom" Space Station proposal the Shuttle appeared to have a continued justification with the prospect of a 6- to 10-crew outpost only being serviceable by the Shuttle. The scale back of the Space Station concept in the 1990s ultimately made the utility of the Shuttle as a manned ferry obsolete. NASA's justification of the STS for its own unmanned science missions has also declined. Following the Challenger disaster, use of the powerful Centaur upper stages required for interplanetary probes was ruled out. The Shuttle's history of unexpected delays also makes it liable to miss the narrow launch windows. Advances in technology over the last decade have made probes smaller and lighter, and as a result it is possible to reach Mars using a relatively cheap and reliable Delta launcher. Another possible impediment to the Shuttle system was the politically required participation of the United States Air Force. To receive the funding required, Congress mandated that the Shuttle replace all other launch vehicles in the national inventory as a cost-cutting measure. This requirement dramatically altered the size and scope of the program as the Air Force needed significant capabilities to allow it to meet national defense objectives. Ironically, neither NASA nor the Air Force got the system they wanted or needed, and the Air Force eventually returned to their older launch systems and abandoned their Vandenberg shuttle launch plans; many of the Air Force-imposed capabilities that most seriously hobbled the Shuttle system have never been used. Opinions differ on the lessons of the Shuttle. In general, however, future designers look to systems with only one stage, automated checkout and, in some cases, overdesigned (more durable) low-tech systems. Another consideration for future manned space flight is to pursue the construction and operation of "space planes", which could fly up to the edge of the atmosphere and then rocket out into Earth orbit, thereby being more efficient and versatile than such vehicles as the space shuttle.

    Terrestrial transportation vehicles


    - The Crawler-Transporter moves the Space Shuttle from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Complex 39
    - The Shuttle Carrier Aircraft is a modified Boeing 747 that flies the Space Shuttle from alternative landing sites back to Cape Canaveral.

    See also


    - Space Exploration
    - Shuttle Derived Launch Vehicle
    - Reusable launch system
    - HOPE-X the Japanese (cancelled) shuttle program.
    - Kliper Reuseabe Russian lifting body spacecraft that is likely to replace the Soyuz system in 2011
    - EADS Phoenix the European Shuttle successor to the cancelled Hermes.
    - Shuttle Buran the Soviet Union's (cancelled) shuttle program.
    - Shuttle SERV
    - Manned space mission
    - List of space shuttle missions
    - List of human spaceflights
    - List of human spaceflights chronologically
    - List of space disasters
    - Lifting body
    - Space Shuttles in fiction

    References


    - [http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/stsref-toc.html Reference manual]
    - [http://science.howstuffworks.com/space-shuttle.htm How The Space Shuttle Works]
    - [http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19810022734_1981022734.pdf NASA Space Shuttle News Reference - 1981 (PDF document)]
    - [http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/resources/orbiters/orbiters.html Orbiter Vehicles]
    - [http://www.house.gov/science/hot/columbia/rs21411.pdf Shuttle Program Funding 1992 - 2002]

    External links


    - [http://www.chrisvalentines.com/sts107/index.html Columbia Disaster Multi-Media]
    - [http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/ NASA Human Spaceflight - Shuttle] Current status of Shuttle missions
    - [http://www.nasa.gov/ntv NASA TV] View live streaming of launch and mission coverage
    - [http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/facility/sts-els.htm List of all Shuttle Landing Sites]
    - [http://www.srh.noaa.gov/smg/lsitegif.htm Map of Landing Sites]
    - [http://gmaps.tommangan.us/spacecraft_tracking.html Track the Shuttle] with Google Maps
    - [http://www.idlewords.com/2005/08/a_rocket_to_nowhere.htm "A Rocket To Nowhere"] criticism of the Space Shuttle program
    - [http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/8004.easterbrook-fulltext.html "Beam Me Out Of This Death Trap, Scotty"] Critical article on the Space Shuttle program, from 1981
    - [http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200311/langewiesche "Columbia's Last Flight"] Article from the Atlantic Monthly on the Columbia disaster and the subsequent investigation
    - [http://www.spacedaily.com/news/shuttle-03p1.html "Explaining 30 years of Fudge"] - how the shuttle program was miss-sold to congress and where the $118/lb supposed costs came from ja:スペースシャトル th:กระสวยอวกาศ Category:Spaceplanes Category:Space launch vehicles Category:Space Shuttle program

    2004

    2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. It was designated the:
    - International Year of Rice (by the United Nations)
    - International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO)
    - 2004 World Health Day topic was Road Safety (by World Health Organization)
    -     Year of the Monkey (by the Chinese calendar) See the world in 2004 for a description of the state of the world in this year. See also Wikipedia's almanac of events for this year.

    Events

    January


    - January 1 - Pervez Musharraf gets a vote of confidence from an electoral college consisting of Parliament and the provincial assemblies, confirming him as President of Pakistan until 2007.
    - January 3 - Flash Airlines Flight 604 crashes into the Red Sea off the coast of Egypt, killing all 148 aboard.
    - January 4 - Mikhail Saakashvili wins the presidential elections in Georgia.
    - January 4 -NASA's MER-A (    Spirit) lands on Mars.
    - January 8 - Queen Elizabeth II christens the     RMS Queen Mary 2 cruise liner, currently the largest ocean liner in the world.
    - January 13 - An Uzbekistan Airways plane crashes in Uzbekistan's capital of Tashkent, killing 37.
    - January 22 - The European Union bans the import of poultry from Thailand, as bird flu spreads throughout Southeast Asia.
    - January 24 - NASA's MER-B (    Opportunity) lands on Mars.
    - January 27 - The British government narrowly wins a House of Commons vote on the proposed introduction of tuition top-up fees in British universities.
    - January 28 - The findings of the Hutton Inquiry are published in London. The British Government is found not to have falsified information in the "sexed up dossier". The report criticises the BBC's role in the death of David Kelly, a weapons expert on Iraq.
    - January 28 - At a hearing of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, it is revealed that the September 11, 2001, terrorists used Mace (a brand of tear gas) or pepper spray in overpowering the flight crew of American Airlines Flight 11.

    February


    - February 1 - A hajj stampede in Mina, Saudi Arabia, kills 251 pilgrims.
    - February 3 - The CIA admits that there was no imminent threat from weapons of mass destruction before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
    - February 6 - A suicide bomber kills 41 people on a metro car in Moscow.
    - February 7 - Several leaders of Abnaa el-Balad arrested in Israel.
    - February 10 - At least 50 people killed in a car bomb attack on a police recruitment centre south of Baghdad.
    - February 10 - The French National Assembly votes to pass a law banning religious items and clothing from schools.
    - February 12 - Same sex marriage in the United States: The City and County of San Francisco begins issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples as an act of civil disobedience.
    - February 13 - Scientists in South Korea announce the cloning of 30 human embryos.
    - February 14 - Riots break out between New South Wales Police and Aboriginal residents of Redfern, a suburb of Sydney, Australia.
    - February 18 - A train carrying a convoy of petrol, fertiliser, and sulfur derails and explodes in Iran, killing 320 people.
    - February 20 - Conservatives win a majority in the Iranian parliament election.
    - February 24 - 6.5 Richter scale earthquake in Northern Morocco hits in the Rif mountains near the city of Al Hoceima - over 400 dead. Ait Kamara is destroyed. 517 dead.
    - February 25- Ash Wednesday. Also, the religious docudrama,     The Passion of the Christ was released.
    - February 26 - The United States lifts a ban on travel to Libya, ending travel restrictions to the nation that had lasted for 23 years.
    - February 26 - Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski is killed in a plane crash near Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
    - February 29 - 2004 Haiti rebellion: Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigns as president of Haiti. The chief justice of the Haitian Supreme Court, Boniface Alexandre, is sworn in as interim president.
    - February 29 - The film     The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King directed by Peter Jackson wins 11 Academy Awards in every category it was nominated.

    March


    - March 2 - John Kerry effectively clinches the 2004 U.S. Democratic Party presidential nomination by winning nine out of 10 "Super Tuesday" primaries and caucuses.
    - March 2 - NASA announces that the Mars rover MER-B (Opportunity), has confirmed that the area of Mars they landed in was once drenched in water.
    - March 10 - Five British men released from detention at Camp Delta, Guantanamo Bay land at RAF Brize Norton. Four are immediately arrested for questioning.
    - March 11 - Simultaneous explosions on rush hour trains in Madrid kill 190 people.
    - March 12 - Following the terrorist attacks in Madrid on March 11, millions of protesters take to the streets of Spanish cities against terrorism.
    - March 14 - Two suicide bombers kill eleven Israeli civilians in Ashdod, Israel.
    - March 14 - The Spanish parliamentary elections of 2004 take place. The incumbent government led by José María Aznar is defeated by the Socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
    - March 14 - Presidential elections in Russia are held. Vladimir Putin easily wins a second term.
    - March 15 - A trio of astronomers announce they have discovered a large trans-Neptunian object, the largest object found in the solar system since Pluto was discovered in 1930. Initially designated 2003 VB12, it was named 90377 Sedna in late September.
    - March 15 - The new Spanish government announces that it will withdraw Spain's 1,300 troops in Iraq.
    - March 17 - Organized violence breaks out over two days in Kosovo. Nineteen people are killed, 139 Serbian homes are burned, schools and businesses are vandalized, and over 30 orthodox monasteries and churches are burned and destroyed.
    - March 19 - The UN launches a corruption investigation due to the scandal over its Iraqi Oil for Food program.
    - March 20 - President Chen Shui-bian wins the Taiwanese presidential election by 0.2% of the vote. The day before, he and Vice President Annette Lu were 'shot'. Lien Chan refuses to concede and demands a recount. A controversial 'peace referendum' opposed by the People's Republic of China is invalidated.
    - March 21 - The 2004 Malaysian general election takes place. The incumbent Barisan Nasional party wins 198 out of 219 seats in the Malaysian Parliament.
    - March 21 - Tony Saca is elected President of El Salvador (inauguration June 1).
    - March 22 - Palestinians protest in the streets after an Israeli helicopter gunship fires a missile at the entourage of Ahmed Yassin in Gaza City, killing Yassin and 7 others.
    - March 25 - British Prime Minister Tony Blair visits Libyan leader Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi, in return for the dismantling of Libya's WMD programme in December 2003 - the first time a major western leader has visited the nation in several decades.
    - March 28 - In France, the government of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin suffers a stunning and unprecedented defeat i