Aerospace Legacy Foundation

Shuttle Columbia- 7 Great Americans

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Space Shuttle Columbia commander Rick Husband, right, and shuttle crew are shown during a news conference Jan. 3, 2003, at Johnson Space Center in Houston. NASA (news - web sites) declared an emergency and feared the worst after losing communication with space shuttle Columbia, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2003, as the ship and its seven astronauts soared over Texas several minutes before its expected landing in Florida. Top row from left are Navy Capt. David Brown, Pilot William McCool, Laurel Clark, Husband, and bottom from left: Payload Commander Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, Israeli Air Force Col. Ilan Ramon. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, FILE)

"The Space Shuttle is developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA coordinates and manages the Space Transportation System (NASA's name for the overall Shuttle program), including intergovernmental agency requirements and international and joint projects. NASA also oversees the launch and space flight requirements for civilian and commercial use.
The Space Shuttle system consists of four primary elements: an orbiter spacecraft, two Solid Rocket Boosters (SRB), an external tank to house fuel and oxidizer and three Space Shuttle main engines.
The orbiter is built by Rockwell International's Space Transportation Systems Division, Downey, Calif., which also has responsibility for the integration of the overall space transportation system. Both orbiter and integration contracts are under the direction of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
The SRB motors are built by the Wasatch Division of Morton Thiokol Corp., Brigham City, Utah, and are assembled, checked out and refurbished by United Space Boosters Inc., Booster Production Co., Kennedy Space Center. Cape Canaveral, Fla. The external tank is built by Martin Marietta Corp. at its Michoud facility, New Orleans, La., and the Space Shuttle main engines are built by Rockwell's Rocketdyne Division, Canoga Park, Calif. These contracts are under the direction of NASA's George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala".    More Shuttle Info

From Boeing
"NASA and its industry team celebrated the 25th anniversary of the most challenging test flight in its history. This occasion marks the first development flight of the Space Shuttle on April 12, 1981, a spacecraft that broke from using capsule based designs to the world's first reusable winged spacecraft, and the first spacecraft in history that could carry large satellites to and from orbit.
The Space Shuttle launches like a rocket, maneuvers in Earth orbit like a spacecraft and lands like a glider. Today, the Space Shuttle with its huge 60 by 15 foot payload bay is essential to completing assembly of the International Space Station, and may even service the Hubble Space Telescope one last time before it is retired in 2010". More

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