shuttle Archives - Universe Today

Get Teased by the New “Interstellar” Trailer

14 Dec , 2013 by Jason Major Video

Christopher Nolan, the writer and director of Memento, Inception, and the most recent Batman films, is taking up space on the big screen next year — literally. Nolan’s newest film, Interstellar, will be a space exploration adventure featuring Matthew McConaughey, Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway, and Michael Caine (of course) and, based on this teaser trailer, […]

The Scariest Part of “Gravity” is the Lack Thereof

5 Sep , 2013 by Jason Major Video

I love science fiction films and I especially love it when the “science” part leans closer to fact than fiction. (Yes, I’m looking at you, Europa Report.) Now I’ve never seen an actual catastrophe in orbit (and I hope I never do) but I have to assume it’d look a whole lot like what’s happening […]

The Lessons We Learned from Space Shuttle Enterprise

18 Feb , 2013 by Elizabeth Howell

On this day 36 years ago, two astronauts aboard the space shuttle Enterprise took the ship out for its initial test flight. It landed on the back of a 747 before undertaking a series of free flights starting in June that year. Enterprise was designed as a test ship only, and was never intended to […]

How to Steal a Space Shuttle

6 Oct , 2012 by Jason Major

For two days, from October 12 to 13, the shuttle Endeavour will be transported along 12 miles of road on the final leg of its journey to the California Science Center. During that time the orbiter will be the most publicly exposed as it’s ever been, a national treasure on the streets of LA. While […]

Fly Over California Alongside a Space Shuttle!

24 Sep , 2012 by Jason Major

A view of Endeavour and SCA over California from one of NASA’s F/A-18 chase planes (NASA/DFRC) We’ve shared several videos from Endeavour’s trip to Los Angeles last week, taken by excited spectators along various portions of the flight path, but what was it like for the crews of the two NASA F/A-18 chase planes that […]

NASA’s Colossal Crawler Gets Souped-Up for SLS

6 Sep , 2012 by Jason Major

Shuttle Discovery riding one of KSC’s crawler-transporters to Launch Pad 39B in June 2005 (NASA) One of NASA’s two iconic crawler-transporters — the 2,750-ton monster vehicles that have delivered rockets from Saturns to Shuttles to launch pads at Kennedy Space Center for nearly half a century — is getting an upgrade in preparation for NASA’s […]

Former Astronaut Criticizes NASA’s Current Course

14 May , 2012 by Jason Major

[/caption] Former NASA astronaut Story Musgrave is neither happy nor excited about the current state of the space administration or about the commercial COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services) program. He’s not happy, and he’s not afraid to say so. “The whole thing is chaos and a cop out. The whole thing is a Washington failure,” […]

Surprise Shuttle Landing Video!

27 Apr , 2012 by Jason Major Video

Talk about the shot of a lifetime! A Canadian airline passenger waiting on the tarmac at JFK this morning got an incredible view of the shuttle Enterprise landing! Just…wow. Video by YouTube user “daujla2”. (Hat tip to the New York Post.)

Shuttle vs. Soyuz

9 Apr , 2012 by Jason Major

[/caption] Here’s an interesting illustration showing the size comparison of a Space Shuttle to a Soyuz vehicle, shared on Twitter by NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio (@AstroRM). Amazing to think that three flight-suited astronauts are able to fit inside a Soyuz and have life support for up to a month! (Although I’m sure most hope they won’t […]

Astronaut Bruce McCandless untethered above the Earth on Feb. 12, 1984. (NASA)

Far Above the World

12 Feb , 2012 by Jason Major

[/caption] 28 years ago today, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless left the relative safety of Challenger’s payload bay and went untethered into orbit around Earth, venturing farther than anyone ever before. The historic photo above was taken when McCandless was 320 feet from the orbiter — about the length of an American football field, or just […]

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