Versatile Space Shuttle Turns Sci-Fi into Reliable Access to Orbit

By Bob Granath

Over three decades America’s Space Shuttle established a legacy of rewriting the history of space flight. During that time, astronauts shuttled to and from low Earth orbit showing again and again the value of the human element in this challenging endeavor.

The National Space Transportation System’s 135 missions have proved that spacecraft can be flown multiple times, deliver to and retrieve from orbit many diverse payloads as well as serving as a platform for assembly and repair work in space.

“The legacy itself is unbelievable,” said Ken Ham, Commander of Atlantis’ STS-132 mission. “(Atlantis) launched Magellan, Galileo. It’s been to Mir seven times. It delivered (to the Space Station) the airlock and the (U.S.) lab, serviced Hubble. This incredible machine has done so much for humanity that it’s, I don’t know how you could describe it.”

Science Fiction to Reality

For those who grew up in the space age watching Apollo astronauts walk on the Moon, the coming of the Space Shuttle era may have looked like the stuff of science fiction.

Many Americans got their first vision of a winged, reusable spaceship in March 1955 – two years before the Soviet Union launched Sputnik – when space visionary Dr. Wernher von Braun appeared on Walt Disney’s popular televisions show.

In an episode titled, “Man in Space,” von Braun (then the Army Ballistic Missile Agency’s chief of Guided Missile Development) showed models and diagrams of a winged spacecraft capable of carrying several travelers and large payloads to Earth orbit.

From 1961 to 1975, the United States human space flight program produced a series of increasingly complex, yet traditional “in-line” launch vehicles and spacecraft utilized through Mercury, Gemini and Apollo.

However, during the time of the final Moon landings in the early 1970s, the concept designs that emerged for the Shuttle led NASA to choose a three-part configuration in March of 1972 – a reusable Orbiter, retrievable solid rocket boosters and an expendable external tank. The goal was to establish a fleet of reusable spacecraft capable of reliably sending crews of up to seven, while at the same time serving as a heavy-lift “space truck” capable of delivering large payloads to low Earth orbit.

Six Shuttle Orbiters were built; the first, Enterprise, was not developed for space flight. It was used only for testing purposes. Five space-worthy Orbiters followed: Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour.

The Space Shuttle Flies

Nine years of design, development and testing led to the first flight which, ironically, took place on the 20th anniversary of Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becoming the first person in space. On April 12, 1981, veteran Astronaut John Young and rookie Bob Crippen lifted off aboard the orbiter Columbia on STS-1. Over two days they proved that the big “space truck” could fly.

The most complex machine ever built, the Space Shuttle has more than 2.5 million parts, including almost 230 miles of wire, more than 1,060 plumbing valves and connections, over 1,440 circuit breakers, and more than 27,000 insulating tiles and thermal blankets. The Shuttle accelerates from zero to 17,500 miles per hour in approximately nine times the speed of a rifle bullet, or 25 times the speed of sound, to attain Earth orbit – all in the first eight and a half minutes after lift-off.

Crippen, who flew the Shuttle four times and later served as director of the Kennedy Space Center, had high praise for the Shuttle on the 25th anniversary of STS-1.

“The Space Shuttle has been a fantastic vehicle,” he said. “It is unlike any other thing that we’ve ever built. Its capabilities have carried several hundred people into space; it’s carried thousands of pounds of payload into space.”

After the successful return of the first Shuttle mission, the next milestone would be proving that a spacecraft could be re-flown successfully.

Seven months after its first flight, Columbia returned to space on STS-2 in November 1981 with Joe Engle and Dick Truly at the controls.

Following two more test flights, the Shuttle was ready to prove its worth as big “space truck” with the orbiters’ payload bay measuring 60 feet long and 15 feet wide and carrying as much as 56,300 pounds. During STS-5 in November 1982, the Shuttle flew with a crew a four, deploying two commercial communications satellites.

 A Versatile Spacecraft

Over the next few years, the orbiters Challenger, Discovery and Atlantis were added to the fleet, crews of up to eight, satellites were deployed, and mission time was extended. Following the loss of Challenger and its crew in 1986, Endeavour was built to round out the fleet.

One of the more complex early Shuttle missions was STS-41C in April 1984. The crew deployed the 30-foot by 14-foot Long-Duration Exposure Facility which weighed 21,500 pounds, making it one of the largest Shuttle-deployed payloads. LDEF was designed to provide long-term data on the space environment and its effects on space systems. The crew also captured the already-orbiting Solar Max satellite which had on-board systems needing repair. During a spacewalk mission specialists George “Pinky” Nelson and James “Ox” Van Hoften successfully repaired the satellite. Solar Max was re-deployed and restored to service. LDEF was returned to Earth when retrieved by the STS-32 crew in January 1990.

In November 1984 the crew of STS-51-A deployed two satellites and then mission specialists Joe Allen and Dale Gardner, wearing jet-propelled Manned Maneuvering Units, retrieved two malfunctioning satellites to bring back for later re-launch.

Three interplanetary craft were launched from Shuttles: the Magellan probe that traveled to Venus, the Galileo spacecraft which studied Jupiter, and the Ulysses spacecraft to the Sun.

Shuttles also deployed other important observatories into space, including the Gamma Ray Observatory, the Diffuse X-Ray Spectrometer and Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

One of the most notable Shuttle payloads was the Hubble Space Telescope. In more than 25 years since its deployment, the Space Telescope has sent back incredible images of the Solar System and the Universe beyond. Due to the time required for the light to travel, Hubble has seen so far away, images have show the formation of galaxies in earliest stages of their development.

After its initial deployment in 1990, Shuttle crews returned to service the orbiting Space telescope five times.

“I think (Hubble) has shown us … that we’re able to do some pretty intricate tasks, that we might not have thought we could do when we first heard about them,” said Mike Massimino, who participated as a Mission Specialist on two of the HST servicing missions – STS-109 and STS-125. “And, Hubble seems to redefine what we’re able to do during our spacewalks each time we go back.”

Endeavour’s Maiden Voyage

Launched on May 7, 1992, a primary goal of Endeavour’s first flight was to rendezvous with, capture and attach a new perigee kick motor to the International Telecommunications Organization Satellite (INTELSAT) VI satellite. The communications satellite was stranded in an unusable orbit since launch on an expendable rocket.

The task would prove more difficult than originally thought.

The plan was to have two spacewalking crewmembers attach a capture bar to the satellite. This would allow it to be placed on the new kick motor using the Shuttle’s robotic arm. But each time Pierre Thuot and Richard Hieb tried to do that, the satellite would wobble preventing attachment of the capture bar. A second spacewalk also proved unsuccessful.

Then a totally new approach was tried involving the first-ever three-person spacewalk. INTELSAT was successfully hand-captured by Thuot, Hieb and Tom Akers as Commander Dan Brandenstein delicately maneuvered the orbiter to within a few feet of the 4.5-ton communications satellite and the three spacewalkers standing underneath. The capture bar was successfully attached so the satellite could then be placed on the new kick motor.

INTELSAT was soon in the proper orbit following a mission that, as much as any in the Shuttle program, proved the value of humans working aboard a flexible, versatile spacecraft.

Hundreds of other scientific experiments have been conducted on orbit. Shuttle crews deployed, retrieved, serviced, repaired and returned satellites as needed.

Between 1995 and 1998 Shuttles docked nine times with the Russian Space Station Mir in joint missions that helped pave the way for the International Space Station.

Flights to construct the International Space Station (ISS) began in 1998. Shuttles carried major pieces of the ISS and crews to the station. During ISS construction, spacewalks, while never routine, have become commonplace.

“I think the end of the Shuttle program is a time to celebrate all the accomplishments, all of the great work that we’ve done with the Shuttle over the past thirty years,” said Alan Poindexter, Commander of the STS-131 flight of Discovery. “We’ve managed to do tremendous things that could never have been done without the Shuttle; (such as) building the Space Station and working with the Hubble. It’s just been a spectacular experience.”

 The Shuttle’s Legacy

“(The Shuttle program) is something that has been truly amazing and I’m honored to have been a part of it along with thousands of other people that made it possible,” said Crippen. “It gave us Hubble, it gave us Galileo, it gave us Magellan. And it’s allowed us to essentially build a Space Station.”

Astronaut Alan Poindexter believes the Space Shuttle will be remembered in a future where space travel between worlds becomes as commonplace as airplane travel is today on Earth.

“I think we might see in 100 or 200 years, the Space Shuttle (like) one of the early aircraft,” he said. “We saw the Wright fliers and the Lindberghs as doing the things that needed to be done in order to make commercial air travel as common as it is today, as safe as it is today. We’ll see the Space Shuttle and the Apollo programs before that and Gemini and Mercury as well as being the early programs that got us on our feet to a successful and safe space-faring society.”

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