Space Shuttle - Tumblr Posts
Washington DC - Shuttle Discovery Flyover on Flickr.
We watched the flyover from the Naval Observatory. It was amazing.
September 21, 2012: It’s just another day in L.A. as the Space Shuttle Endeavour passes overhead on its way to LAX, the last stop before retirement at the California Science Center.
21 years ago today, the shuttle orbiter Columbia and all seven astronauts she carried disintegrated on reentry. They were roughly fifteen minutes from landing.
Sometimes I watch the mission control recordings of that morning. It's a reminder of what —of who— we've lost on our path to the stars. it's a reminder that things can go so wrong so quickly in spaceflight.
HOBAUGH: Columbia, Houston, we see your tire pressure messages and we did not copy your last. HUSBAND: Roger, uh—
The loss of Columbia was the nail in the proverbial coffin for the shuttle program. NASA kept the other three orbiters flying without incident until 2011, but... we were supposed to go further. The shuttles were meant to be the dawn of the new age of spaceflight. We were meant to keep new shuttles, better shuttles, flying higher and higher for thirty more years. We were meant to get back to the Moon by 2011, and Mars by now. And instead, the swans of the space age were grounded. We're making a halfhearted, direly underfunded push for the Moon only now.
CAIN: FDO, when you expecting tracking? JONES: One minute ago, Flight.
I hope all this waiting has been worth it. I hope the contractors that NASA has been forced to buy spacecraft from (instead doing everything in-house like they always have) did not cut corners. I hope we make up for lost time, and we get to touch the sky again without losing anyone else.
CAIN: GC, Flight. GC, Flight. FOSTER: Flight, GC— CAIN: Lock the doors. FOSTER: ...Copy.
Lock the doors. The most horrible sentence in spaceflight. It means no information leaves the building. It means the emergency protocols are kicking in. It means the mission is over because everyone died, and now all we can do is try to figure out what happened so that it doesn't happen ever again.
I hope I never hear that phrase spoken in my lifetime.
Thunder on, STS-107.
Another WIP to the top of the pile. Still haven’t finished the first shuttle and I keep making more. Send help
Source
Unusual friends.
Space shuttle and Boeing 747 like seen here.
The Shuttle Carrier Aircraft takeoff. Based on a photo.
Original: link
Story time! A short comic about the Buran, the only Soviet space shuttle that went into space.
When the worlds collide.
“aaaaAAAAAAAAAAAA! What is THAT!”
SkyLynx don’t be mean!!!
She’s just trying to say hello!!
He eventually calms down. They’re both dragon-planes, after all! (He just claims to have the superior neck!)
[ Headworld crossover - shuttle vs shuttle! Sky Lynx meets Atlantis!]
Buran and Antonov at the Paris Airshow 1989. Loosely based on a photo.
Please reblog to increase sample size, I am trying to find out how much normal people know about this because I am Not Normal and my assumed baseline of knowledge cannot be trusted
Ship in a bottle :)