Overview
- Explores the technical and human stories behind the evolution of the Space Shuttle program
- Covers efforts made to enhance the shuttle’s safety, including improvements to the engine, external tank, solid rocket booster systems, and drag chute
- Includes recollections by shuttle astronauts, engineers and managers
Part of the book series: Springer Praxis Books (PRAXIS)
Part of the book sub series: Space Exploration (SPACEE)
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Table of contents (8 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
This book explains how the achievements of the Space Shuttle, the world’s first reusable manned spacecraft, were built on the foundation of countless technical challenges.
Through thick and thin, the Space Shuttle remained the centerpiece of the American human spaceflight program for three decades. In addition to deploying satellites, planetary probes and, of course, the Hubble Space Telescope, it delivered astronauts to the Mir space station and assembled and sustained the International Space Station. Yet the path to these incredible achievements was never an easy one, with some obstacles resulting in the loss of life and other major consequences that plagued the fleet throughout its operational career.The book adopts a challenge-by-challenge approach, focusing on specific difficulties and how (if at all) they were fully overcome. Going beyond the technical issues, it relates the human stories of each incident and how changes were effected in order to make theshuttle an exceptionally safer – though still experimental – flying machine.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Ben Evans has been involved with the topic of space exploration, especially human space exploration, since childhood. He regularly wrote to NASA, corresponded with astronauts and attended lectures and events. Since 1992, Evans has written extensively for the magazines Spaceflight, Countdown, Astronomy Now, Astronomy, All About Space and BBC Sky at Night Magazine.
Evans is currently the senior writer for the website AmericaSpace.com, where he covers space history, launches and International Space Station news. He has written nine previous books for the Springer-Praxis imprint, including NASA’s Voyager Missions (2003), Space Shuttle Columbia (2005), and Space Shuttle Challenger (2006). More recently, Evans wrote a six-volume History of Human Space Exploration, published between 2009 to 2014.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Space Shuttle: An Experimental Flying Machine
Book Subtitle: Foreword by Former Space Shuttle Commander Sid Gutierrez
Authors: Ben Evans
Series Title: Springer Praxis Books
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70777-4
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Physics and Astronomy, Physics and Astronomy (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-70776-7Published: 11 May 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-70777-4Published: 10 May 2021
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XI, 291
Number of Illustrations: 3 b/w illustrations, 99 illustrations in colour
Topics: Popular Science in Technology, Aerospace Technology and Astronautics, Space Sciences (including Extraterrestrial Physics, Space Exploration and Astronautics), Popular Science in Astronomy