The+Shuttle

The Shuttle by Gregory, grade 4

In 1969 Russia’s space program raced America’s space program called “NASA.” The race was a waste of time and money. NASA sent space ships out into space, but they couldn’t get the ships back down. The rockets would burn up when they entered the earth’s atmosphere. Due to this, NASA started to design the space shuttle.

In 1981 the first space shuttle, Columbia, was made. NASA wanted to have a ship that could carry hard ware, such as parts for a space lab, and that could be reused. Columbia could do both of these things. However, NASA did not know if it would fly or not. Eventually, space veteran John



Young flew Columbia. He did not know if it would fly or not. No one in NASA knew either. John Young first flew Columbia in 1981. It flew up in the air without any problems. At NASA, all the people that worked on Columbia, from the communications people to the engineers to the scientists were very proud.

Columbia had three engines and twin rocket boosters. It had the biggest external fuel tank in the world. The tank was 154 feet long and twenty-seven feet in diameter. It was filled with liquid hydrogen. When this hydrogen runs out, the tank is designed to fall back to earth and land in the water.

Later, NASA had four space shuttles, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery and Atlantis. All of them were supposed to make 100 trips to space and back. They were supposed to carry military and foreign satellites into space. Columbia did carry a space lab made by the European Space Agency in 1983.

Columbia finally broke down in 2003. Astronauts died then. When the shuttle went up in space NASA saw a trail of white foam coming from the shuttle. After that, they heard a loud noise come from Columbia and they lost radio contact with them. Then the ship started to break apart. It did that because the left wing was broken. To this day NASA doesn’t know why that wing was broken.

There are still space shuttles being used today. They are used to study space and carry space labs and astronauts back and forth from Earth. The Space Shuttles show us what people can do if they try hard enough and believe in a good idea.