16. Mission Space Shuttle
Updated: Oct 2, 2021
Today's blog is on Space Shuttles! I made a YouTube video on Space Shuttles too. Check it out here.
Space X is a new company building brand new rockets and launching them into space with people in them. This is the same with the space shuttle program, but the space shuttle can be reused over and over again.
The speed that this space plane gets up to is 28,000 kph or in miles 17,500 mph. that’s fast! The fastest a race car has gone is 413.205 km!
The parts of the space shuttle are
The payload bay (carries satellites or parts of a space station)
Upper deck (where the crew flies the shuttle)
Lower deck (where the astronauts do their physical tasks)
Engines (you know what they were for!)
Wings (used to Glide down the shuttle safely)
Six space shuttles were built between the 20th and the 21st century. The names of these space shuttles were ...
Enterprise
Columbia
Challenger
Discovery
Atlantis and
Endeavour
Four of these space shuttles successfully made it to space. Enterprise was a test shuttle and challenger blew up.
The reason you can’t see Columbia on display is that a piece of insulation from the external tank broke off during a launch and took a lot of the tiles off the left wing of the orbiter. But nobody noticed so, they kept rising until they were in space. When they were in orbit they did their mission (putting a satellite into orbit) then they stayed up in space for 16 days until it was time to come down. As they were coming down, the pressure at the place where the tiles fell off got SO hot that it burned the left wing right off. The space shuttle started spinning out of control. The wreckage of the left wing took off more tiles that lead to the payload bay breaking up and loss of the shuttle.
It was a very sad day for a lot of people. My Dad saw space shuttle Columbia orbiting the Earth the night before the accident when he was camping. It looked like a big satellite, like the international space station (ISS).
One of the space shuttle’s most important jobs was delivering most pieces of the ISS. The ISS weighs about 450 tons, which is 450,000kg! This is the same weight as 75 full grown African Elephants. The station is about 110 x 70 metres in size which is about the size of a soccer field.
Image by WikiImages from Pixabay
Video by NASA-Imagery from Pixabay
Wow, this is great information Henry. I didn't know why the Columbia shuttle failed, very sad for the people on board and their family and friends. I guess there will always be risks going into space.