From 1981 to 2011, the area shuttle flew 135 missions and carried 355 folks into area. It launched satellites. It deployed (then later mounted) the Hubble Telescope. It was instrumental in constructing and ferrying crews to and from the Worldwide Area Station. And, at instances, its success made spaceflight virtually look routine — with the lack of two shuttles and their crews rapidly reminding us that was not fairly true.
And, after all, a lot of the expertise, coaching, and management of the missions themselves stemmed from proper right here in Larger Houston on the Johnson Area Heart.
A brand new e book chronicles the story of the area shuttle and primarily acts as an encyclopedia of every of its missions, with info, photographs, and oral histories from every. It is known as Area Shuttle Tales: Firsthand Astronaut Accounts from All 135 Missions.
Smithsonian Books/NASA
Veteran astronaut Tom Jones collected oral histories and tales from all 135 area shuttle missions for his e book, “Area Shuttle Tales.”
A former shuttle astronaut compiled the e book. Tom Jones flew on 4 missions within the Nineteen Nineties and tells Houston Issues producer Michael Hagerty that what made the shuttle so unparalleled in area flight – and nonetheless so to today – was that it was concurrently plenty of various things, from a rocket ship, to an orbiting laboratory and classroom, to an airplane.
PHOTOS FROM “SPACE SHUTTLE STORIES”:
The primary-ever crewed launch of the Area Shuttle on on April 12, 1981, carrying astronauts John Younger and Robert Crippen. (Picture Credit score: NASA Picture Library)
The Area Shuttle Atlantis, with its exterior tank/strong rocket booster stack, rolls out for launch on Aug. 20, 1996. (Picture Credit score: NASA Picture Library)
The Area Shuttle Endeavour lands at Edwards Air Power Base in 2001. (Picture Credit score: NASA Picture Library)
The area shuttle Challenger explodes moments after launch on Jan. 28, 1986 from the Kennedy Area Heart, killing its seven crewmembers. (Picture Credit score: NASA Picture Library)
The Area Shuttle Atlantis orbits Earth at a degree above Uzbekistan and the southern Aral Sea in 1995. (Picture Credit score: NASA Picture Library)
The area shuttle Endeavour after undocking with the Worldwide Area Station on Feb. 19, 2010. (Picture Credit score: NASA Picture Library)
Astronaut Bruce McCandless II approaches his most distance from the Earth-orbiting Area Shuttle Challenger throughout a spacewalk in 1984. (Picture Credit score: NASA Picture Library)
