Space Shuttle: how it works

 Looking at how complex a space shuttle is there are three main components. There are two solid rocket boosters. They produce about 80 percent of the thrust from the launch. There is the external tank. It is the rusty colored large thing that is attached to the space shuttle. It feeds fuel to three motors during launch. It holds hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel. The last and most important thing of course is the orbiter, or the common shuttle, which the astronauts live in during their duration in space. It also orbits the earth or anywhere else. It has landing gear and also gear to attach to the International Space Station. The last updates to any shuttle were in 2005 when they redesigned the external tank.

Ryba, J. (2011, July 28). Space Shuttle. Retrieved October 19, 2011, from NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/vehicle/index.html

NASA in Antarctica

Nasa is not a space only company. They offer many other possibilities that we may not know of. Right now NASA is currently experimenting in Antarctica surveying their currently changing ice situation. This mission is called Operation IceBridge. It’s basically for explaining how high the sea level of water will rise when the polar ice sheets by Greenland and Antarctica will melt. This has been going on over the last three years and are finally getting some results and answers to some of their questions. The glaciers move over time and the scientists are slowly seeing changes in the amount of ice and how it changes from the surface all the way down to the bedrock. They fly two separate planes with much valuable scientific equipment on board across Antarctica at different times to conduct different surveys and topographies of the barren ice land.

Cole, S. (2011, October 13). IceBridge Antarctica 2011. Retrieved October 19, 2011, from NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/icebridge/news/fall11/antarctic_2011campaign.html

Space History

In 1957 the Soviet Union launches first capsule into space. The United States is right behind doing the same thing a year later. October 1, 1958 NASA is formed by Congress. In 1961 Soviet Union sends first man into space and returned him hope safely. In 1969 the US sends the first men to the moon and they walk on it. They are the infamous Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin. In 1973 the US sends up its first mini space station. In 1983 Sally Ride becomes the first woman in space. The next month the first African American was allowed up.

Guevin, J. (2007, October 1). cnet. Retrieved Octover 5, 2011, from 50 years in space: http://news.cnet.com/Timeline-Key-milestones-in-space-exploration/2009-11397_3-6210843.html

International Space Station

   First the United States and 15 other nations all had huge parts in assembling this space station. We put the most into our space exploration and Russia put in the second most. There are many laboratories onboard of the station to test different things. For example: they grow cells and viruses and bacteria because there is no pull of gravity on them to change them. There are also other things that surprisingly grow better in space such as some crystals and other items. This is interesting because there is a lot of information telling what each nation brought to the table, what we worked on together, and separate.

UK. (1999, June 3). international space station. Retrieved October 5, 2011, from shuttlepresskit.com: http://www.shuttlepresskit.com/ISS_OVR/index.htm

NASA

NASA is not closing, it is simply shutting down the space shuttle program. It is doing so for two main reasons. First, the space shuttles are over 30 years old and out of date and of course the funding had basically disappeared. They are now putting more time into exploring the rest of space and this possibly may be able to help explore different worlds such as our own. There are 3 different kinds of flying devices being made in America as we speak. They are by Boeing, SpaceX, and the Sierra Nevada Corp. The first two are just little capsule style shuttles with a parachute landing device and the Sierra Nevada Corp. is building a smaller space ship named the Dream Chaser.

University, W. (2011, 9 14). on verge of new discovery. Retrieved 9 15, 2011, from physorg.org: http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-09-mars-rover-opportunity-verge-discovery.html