The Space Shuttle: A Mission-by-Mission Celebration of NASA's Extraordinary Spaceflight Program

Description

“Any backyard astronomer or space enthusiast would be delighted to have this visual journey on their shelf.” — The Strategist , The Year’s Most Giftable Coffee-Table Books A Barnes & Noble Best Gift Book of 2022 A Publishers Weekly Holiday Gift Guide 2022 selection 6 orbiters, 140 missions, 355 astronauts, 500,000,000 miles—all in one rich and beautiful photographic journey The Space Shuttle tells the story of NASA’s amazing Space Shuttle program and its 140 space flights (135 missions, plus five Approach and Landing Tests) in a uniquely designed and covetable way. Long before the James Webb Telescope rekindled our fascination with astronomy and our place in the cosmos, the Space Shuttle began to capture the world’s attention with its first mission (a test launch) on April 12, 1981 and continued to do so until its final mission on July 8, 2011. The program’s six orbiter vehicles are Enterprise , Columbia , Challenger , Discovery , Atlantis , and Endeavour . Each mission has its own fascinating story, and The Space Shuttle retells these stories, in chronological order, through incredible photos taken by NASA photojournalists, fine art photographers, and the astronauts themselves. Each image is accompanied by a short text that includes quick facts such as crew members, launch date, and landing date, as well as a short overview of highlights and purpose. For example, STS-78’s mission was to study circadian rhythms in space; STS-41G’s mission was to take photographs in-flight, seen in the IMAX movie The Dream Is Alive ; and famously, the first untethered space walk, taken by astronaut Bruce McCandless on STS-41B using a self-propelled backpack unit (called a Man Maneuvering Unit [MMU]), allowed astronauts to capture satellites for retrieval and repair and for the planned construction of what became the International Space Station (ISS). Prior to this mission, astronauts were attached to the shuttle with safety lines. The photo of McCandless floating above Earth’s surface is one of the most celebrated and famous space photographs ever. These are just a few of the 140 stories Miller tells in this beautiful volume. Review: Great choice! - Brilliant photos about Space Shuttle program. Premium quality. Lot of stories and details about photos. Review: All 135 STS Missions in Color - My favorite book covering the entire spectrum of all 135 STS missions. Beautiful Photography. From early development through every flight until the end of the program. I use it in conjunction with the NASA website and Wikipedia to learn more about each mission and the crews. The STS was amazingly successful for the incredibly complex system it was. Every flight was experimental. It's a testament to all the engineers and technicians working on the program that the STS program was so successful. In the end the program was shut down due to the cost of operation. Really too bad that politics plays such a big part for NASAs budget. NASA does so much with so little.