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To start off our news binge, we turn to the Space Shuttle Atlantis. As some of you know, Atlantis has had to endure a whole lot on its mission; from failing Russian computers to bad weather complicating its return to makeshift repairs to the orbiter’s heat shield. However, at 12:49 PM, the Atlantis landed at Edwards AFB without any problems. Congrats to NASA…
Even with all of the talk about the heat shield, there was a more dangerous, but often overlooked, issue. Down here on Earth, we take the weather for granted, but when your relatively fragile craft is screaming into the atmosphere at over 15,000 miles an hour, high visibility, low wind speed, and stable temperatures are all very important to keeping safe. These weather considerations are why NASA decided to move the landing to Edwards AFB in California; clouds present over Kennedy Space Center would have obstructed the vision of the flight crew during their high speed landing. Unfortunately, now the Atlantis must piggyback back to the Space Center on the top of a special 747 jetliner. The trip itself will cost NASA $2 million dollars to get Atlantis back. Next in the PTech In Space lineup: NASA’s plans to replace the Hubble Space Telescope… Pictures Courtesy Of: NASA, NASA TV; Related Posts:PaulTech In Space: The James Webb Telescope Earlier this week I started you off on our "PTiS" segment by relaying the news of the Atlantis' journey and... PaulTech Shopping I would like to introduce my tech shopping site. The link is listed on the right. I think... PaulTech in Space: Super Alloys and A Better Stainless Steel Today's PaulTech in Space does not really have anything to do with NASA, although if reports I'm reading are true,... PaulTech PSA: Under Construction Little heads up from the PaulTech main research labs. For those of you reading this on an RSS feeder, don't... PaulTech in Space: The Final Frontier To be honest, it's always been a kid dream of mine to be on the space shuttle or even the... Comments2 Comments so far |
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With the Space Shuttle Atlantis reaching Earth successfully, I’ve decided to bring you faithful readers all kinds of mostly useless, but nonetheless, cool tidbits of information about NASA, space, and even the retirement of the shuttle orbiters.
In my curiosity, I went hunting to see if I could find any pictures of the damage to the Shuttle heat shield, but the best I could manage was a picture of the heat shield taken on NASA TV. Engineers didn’t think that the damaged thermal blanket would cause any problems, but they dispatched an astronaut to staple it down during their constructions of a power truss array on the ISS.
I’ve heard the landings are really something to see. Apparently it drops like a rock and levels off at the last minute. That must be some ride
I wanted to make the drive to Edwards to photograph the shuttle landing, but didn’t know until it was too late to drive from L.A. Do you know the day this week it departs to Kennedy as a piggyback and from which side of Edwards it will take off?