A Little You Should Know About Space Shuttles

Space shuttles are space crafts that can be used again and again. They were designed to put out and retrieve satellites and to conduct experiments in space, this is done with the Remote Manipulator System, which is like a long arm that grabs things and can move them. The experiments that will and are being done are in areas of microgravity science, life science, space science, Earth science, and engineering research and development. A future goal for the shuttle is to aid in creating an International Space Station, because then, people could take components from Earth and use RMS to install them in space. In 1972, President Nixon told the public that NASA would be developing a reusable space shuttle, the Space Transportation System (STS). A shuttle is made of an orbiter attached to solid rocket boosters and an external fuel tank. The orbiter carries the people and the payload, it also has airplaine parts connected to it that help it fly. The external fuel tank carries the fuel necessary for the launch. The rocket boosters shoot the shuttle into space, and therefore are very important in launch. After the shuttle is in the air, the two solid rocket boosters fall away. Then, the fuel tank falls away. Next, the shuttle is in orbit. Soon it turns into retrofire and enters the Earths atmosphere. Last, it approaches its landing destination and finally lands. During landing, the shuttle must do many things. The shuttle must be flipped around so it is tail first, then after the shuttle has slowed down a bit to promote descent, flipped around again so it is nose first, then it must burn extra fuel because the atmosphere is very hot, and the fuel could explode. If all this is done successfully, the shuttle will have re-entered Earth's atmosphere. Now it flies like an airplane, apart from the facts that it is going at a very fast rate and with a steeper slope. It lands like an airplane, on a runway.