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 the shuttle an exceptionally safer – though still experimental – flying machine.
Author(s): Ben Evans
Series: Springer Praxis Books
Publisher: Springer
Year: 2021
Language: English
Pages: 302
City: Cham
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Author’s Preface
Contents
1: A Troubled Childhood
First Motions
A Reusable Spaceship
Winning the President’s Ear
Competing Priorities
The Shuttle Takes Shape
Qualifying the System
Tragedy at the Finish Line
2: A Machine Flown By People
Changes
Schedule Pressure, Turnaround Times and Flight Rates
Crew Dynamics and Real Life
Training, Teamwork and Tensions
Morale and Fear
Passengers, Politicians and the Fallacy of ‘Routine’
3: Blowing The Bolts
“When You Got Debts”
Seats, Suits and Survival
Loaded Guns
Abort!
Engine Improvements
4: The External Tank
Woodpeckers, Weight and Tales of Woe
One-Way Ticket
Battling Ice, Insulation and Other Ills
A Hazard to the Very End
5: Big Dumb Boosters
Three-Tenths of a Second
The Trauma of Challenger
Resignation, Recrimination and Redesign
The Swinging Pendulum
6: The Shuttle’s Fragile Skin
Watching the Elevon Trim
An Accepted Risk
The Agony of Columbia
Timeline to Tragedy
An Enduring Problem
7: A Lifetime of Challenges
Miracles
Of Many Hands and Robot Arms
Hazards of Spacewalking
Sickness, Small Spaces and Toilet Troubles
8: Hard Road To Wheels Stop
The Predations of Mother Nature
Counting Down to Re-entry
The Good…
The Not So Good…
The ‘Interesting’…
The ‘Unreal’…
…And the Outright Ugly
“As Good As It Was Going to Get”
Bibliography
About The Author
Index
