To achieve this goal, the United States should …develop new systems of technology for space operation…through a program directed initially toward development of a new space transportation capability…"

According to Cox (1962), many responsible observers felt that we were devoting too many of our resources to increasing an already affluent volume of private consumption and too little for public services, including space-flight programs.

In early 1970, NASA initiated extensive engineering, design, and cost studies of a space shuttle. These studies covered a wide variety of concepts ranging from a fully reusable manned booster and orbiter to dual strap-on solid propellant rocket motors and an expendable liquid propellant tank. Each concept evaluated development risks a

Six pressure windshields, two overhead windows and two rear-viewing payload bay windows are located in the upper flight deck of the crew module, and a window is located in the crew entrance/exit hatch located in the midsection, or deck, of the crew module.

To travel that fast, it must reach an altitude above most of Earth's atmosphere so that friction with the air will not slow it down or overheat it. The journey starts relatively slowly: at liftoff, the shuttle weighs more than 2.04 million kilograms (4.5 million pounds) and it takes eight seconds for the engines and boosters to accelerate the ship to 161 kilometers per hours (100 mph.) But, by the time the first minute has passed, the shuttle is traveling more than 1,609 kilometers per hour (1,000 mph) and it has already consumed more than one and a half million pounds of fuel. Rutondo (1994) emphasized that the craft should possess sufficient thrust to allow it to pass through the speed of sound as rapidly as possible

The main engines develop thrust by using high-energy propellants in a staged combustion cycle. The propellants are partially combusted in dual preburners to produce high-pressure hot gas to drive the turbo pumps. Temperatures in the main engine combustion chamber can reach as high as 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit (3,315.6 degrees Celsius).

The engines' exhaust is primarily water vapor as the hydrogen and oxygen combine. As the engines push the Shuttle toward orbit, I have learned they consume liquid fuel at a rate that would drain an average family swimming pool in less than 25 seconds generating over 37 million horsepower. Their turbines spin almost 13 times as fast as an automobile engine spins when it is running at highway speed.

The skin of the external tank is covered with a thermal protection system that is a 2.5-centimeter (1-inch) thick coating of spray-on polyisocyanurate foam. The purpose of the thermal protection system is to maintain the propellants at an acceptable temperature, to protect the skin surface from aerodynamic heat and to minimize ice formation.

During the first stage ascent I have learned that after about two minutes, when the shuttle is about 45 kilometers (28 miles) high and traveling more than 4,828 kilometers per hour (3,000 mph), the propellant in the two boosters is exhausted and the booster casings are jettisoned. They parachute into the Atlantic Ocean, splashing down about 225 kilometers (140 miles) off the Florida coast. The empty boosters -- the largest solid rockets ever built -- are recovered by special NASA ships to be eventually refilled with fuel and launched again. The solid fuel used by the boosters is actually powdered aluminum -- a form of the same metal you find in foil wraps in your kitchen -- with oxygen provided by a chemical called ammonium perchlorate.

Some topics in this essay:
External Tanks, Space Station, Edition Vol, Atlantic Ocean, Facility March, Earth Eating, January February, System RMS, According Cox, Pacific Ocean, main engines, space shuttle, solid rocket, payload bay, flight deck, space shuttle main, crew module, shuttle main, external tank, rocket boosters, solid rocket boosters, shuttle main engines, orbital maneuvering, maneuvering system engines, solid rocket motor,