History of endeavour space shuttle
![history of endeavour space shuttle history of endeavour space shuttle](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/J2gAAOSwBrxh93ad/s-l400.jpg)
I came to work at the Kennedy Space Center in 1989 and it's been a tremendous experience for me. I've been involved with the space shuttle for 20 years. "The end of the space shuttle program, for me, is definitely mixed emotions. Kay Hire, one of Endeavour's mission specialists, has a unique point-of-view because she worked on the space shuttles at the Kennedy Space Center as a ground team member before being selected as an astronaut. When interplanetary travel becomes normal I have a feeling we'll look back to the space shuttle and we'll see that we were a lot closer in this time to doing that kind of thing than we thought," Zamka said. We were definitely reaching when we built the space shuttle and we've flown it for 30 years and we have done some amazing things. It was a machine that was designed to do a lot of things. "It was such an ambitious concept to have its own airlock, to have its own robotic arm to capture and release satellites in space and to land like an airplane. So we have really learned a lot about becoming a space-faring nation with this vehicle."Įndeavour commander George Zamka says the diverse capabilities of the space shuttles is what will make the vehicles forever memorable. Many things the shuttle does that we now sort of take for granted, we had no idea it could even be done before the shuttle flew and we're using the shuttle in ways that we didn't really foresee, much, much more complicated missions than we ever imagined. "Shuttle is a grand statement about America's ability to make a huge leap into the future. "I've worked on the shuttle since before it flew, worked at NASA Ames on wind tunnel and computational investigations into how the shuttle would fly or how it should be shaped so that it would fly appropriately," said Steve Robinson, a veteran of three shuttle missions and Endeavour's flight engineer. With just five space shuttle missions left to fly, the astronauts who will launch aboard Endeavour this weekend are sharing their thoughts on the venerable spaceplanes that'll soon be history.Ītlantis orbits high above Earth during one of its missions to build the International Space Station. Spaceflight Now | STS-130 Shuttle Report | Endeavour crew sees place in history for the space shuttlesĮndeavour crew sees place in history for the space shuttles