Farewell - Space Shuttle!
An era is ending.
Even during the Apollo moon landing of Apollo 16 in 1972 the U.S. astronaut John Young was informed, that the next step would be carried into space with a space shuttle. On April 12 1981, exactly 20 years after the flight of Russian cosmonaut Yuri A. Gagarin the Space Shuttle mission STS-1 lifted off from the launch pad in Florida. On board two astronauts, John Young and Robert Crippen. During this mission, the Space Shuttle "Columbia" was tested in order to make the way towards a new future of manned space flight.
During the next decades, the space shuttle proved to be a workhorse. Dozens of scientific missions were flown. Satellites exposed, e.g. the Galileo probe to Jupiter or Magellan to Venus. The Hubble Space Telescope was launched into orbit and then repaired in a perilous mission, as the primary mirror had a deformity and Hubble delivered fuzzy pictures. Hundreds of astronauts flew on the wings of the space shuttle into space, also many astronauts from friendly states. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the political borders opened, and in 1996 the first Space Shuttle docked to the Russian space station MIR. International cooperation was deepened, leading to the beginning in 1998, the first modules of the International Space Station ISS were took into space.
The Space Shuttle has become of burden to bring modules, crews and equipment to the largest outpost of humanity.
Setbacks were recorded: the Challenger exploded in 1989, only a few seconds after the lift off in the blue sky over Florida. Seven astronauts were killed. 2003 burned up the space shuttle Columbia in the sky during the re-entry in Earth's atmosphere. Caused by a piece of insulating foam which had broken off from the main tank and damaged the delicate wing fronts during lift off, so that the seven astronauts on board had not a chance.
Since the launch of a space shuttle costs more than $ 1 billion, the NASA decided a few years ago to retire the Space Shuttle fleet, which consists of three shuttles, in 2010. The system would be too old, too expensive and too dangerous. New rockets and spaceships should be developed and engineered to find a safe and cost effective solution to bring payloads and crews into space to the International Space Station and beyond. The Constellation program was born, but is currently under review in times of economy crisis, the previously existing sources of money flowing endlessly are on a hold.
Therefore, in 2010, are now (date of July 2010) up only one Space Shuttle launch. You can be there when STS-133 in November (01.11.2010) or STS-134 (26.02.2011) will rise majestically into space in order to complete the last flights.
SPACE TRAVELLERS has compiled a unique journey what brings you closer to the past, the present and the future of U.S. and international spaceflight and human exploration of space. So if you ever want to have the experience of a space shuttle launch live, then you have not many opportunities to do so.
Contact us today, for the last places these tours are popular!
