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My personal experience with the:
Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia who gave their lives for our US space program and to all of our Astronauts who have flown and will fly into space! HIGH FLIGHT Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there, I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air. Up, up the long delirious burning blue I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace Where never lark, or even eagle flew. And while with silent lifting mind I've trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand and touched the face of God. John Gillespie Magee, Jr. NASA’s Space Shuttle was the most capable, versatile and reliable space-faring vehicle
ever built. As a major transportation link between Earth and low Earth orbit (LEO), the Shuttle
kept the United States on the cutting edge of space exploration and scientific discovery from 1981 through
2011.
The reusable Orbiters are only a
part of the overall Shuttle system. The Shuttle system
consists of an Orbiter Vehicle (OV), an External Tank (ET),
and twin Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs), which together weigh
4.5 million pounds fully fueled, produce seven million pounds
of thrust, and are capable of lifting up to 65,000 pounds of
cargo to orbit, plus a flight crew to manipulate the cargo. Each Orbiter is 121 feet long with a wingspan of 78 feet –
about the size of a DC-9 commercial airliner. Its payload bay
measures 60 by 15 feet. The forward fuselage houses the
pressurized crew cabin including the cockpit and crew working
and living areas. The mid-body consists of the payload bay,
the wing, and main landing gear attach points. The aft
fuselage holds the main engines, the orbital maneuvering
system (OMS), the reaction control system (RCS) and the
vertical tail. Each Orbiter is designed for a lifetime of 100
flights. The ET, which is the only major component of the Space Shuttle
that is not reusable, is 154 feet long and 28.6 feet in
diameter. To meet the needs for flights to the International
Space Station, a new super lightweight tank was recently
developed that incorporates aluminum-lithium in its internal
structures, reducing the overall tank weight by 7,500 pounds.
Weighing slightly more than 71,000 pounds without fuel, the ET
weighs 1.67 million pounds with a full load of liquid
propellant and oxidizer. Thousands of gallons of liquid
hydrogen and oxygen are drawn from the tank by the Shuttle’s
main propulsion system during ascent. Once orbit is achieved,
the tank is ejected and disintegrates in the Earth’s upper
atmosphere. Each Shuttle is equipped with two SRBs that provide the
initial thrust and acceleration to allow the main engines to
carry the Orbiter into space. The boosters are 116 feet long,
12 feet in diameter and contain more than one million pounds
of solid propellant. The propellant burns at 5,800 degrees and
each SRB delivers 2.65 million pounds of thrust at liftoff.
After two minutes, at an altitude of about 24 miles, the
boosters separate from the ET and descend by parachute into
the ocean, where they are collected for refurbishment and
reuse. The Shuttle SRBs are the largest solid rocket
propellant motors ever built and the first to be used on a
human-rated spacecraft. Space Shuttle
Main Engine (SSMEs)
The SSMEs are the most reliable and highly tested large rocket
engines ever built. With a maximum thrust at sea level of more
than 418,000 pounds each, they work in tandem with the solid
rocket boosters from liftoff until SRB separation, about two
minutes after launch, after which they are the sole means of
propelling the Orbiter into space. The engines are gimbaled to
steer the Shuttle during the climb to orbit. Normal engine
operating time during ascent is about 8.5 minutes, and each
engine has a designed operating lifetime of about 7.5
cumulative hours.
 Atlantis docked with the International Space Station Image used with permission from: Ron Dantowitz, Marek Kozubal, Clay Center Observatory Dexter and Southfield Schools This remarkable image of the space shuttle orbiter Atlantis docked with the International Space Station (ISS) during the STS-117 mission was taken at a range of 190 nautical miles. To record the fast moving pair, astronomers at Clay Center Observatory, near Boston, Massachusetts, planet Earth, used a satellite tracking system and 25-inch diameter telescope in combination with a digital video camera. In the sharp picture, Atlantis is below and left of center. The aft view shows three main engines just below its vertical tail glinting in the sunlight. With the Sun shining from below, the body of the orbiter casts a long shadow across the ISS itself and impressive details of the ISS solar arrays used for power generation are easily visible. The large set of solar arrays installed at the lower right was delivered during this visit from Atlantis.
 Endeavour docked with the International Space Station For a Hi-Res copy of all the images click on picture above. NASA Releases Unique 'Portrait' of Shuttle and International Space Station. These images of the International Space Station and the docked Space Shuttle Endeavour (STS-134), flying at an altitude of approximately 220 miles, was taken by Expedition 27 crew member Paolo Nespoli from the Soyuz TMA-20 following its undocking on May 23, 2011. It is the first-ever image of a space shuttle docked to the International Space Station. space shuttle docked to the International Space Station. The International Space Station seen here is now completely built.
 
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