By David Baker
Hardcover, 8.75 x 10. 875
160 pages, 200 color, 50 b/w photos
ISBN: 978-0-7603-4076-9
$28.00 / $30.00 CAN
BUY NOW!
Hardcover, 8.75 x 10. 875
160 pages, 200 color, 50 b/w photos
ISBN: 978-0-7603-4076-9
$28.00 / $30.00 CAN
BUY NOW!
"More than 250 photographs and technical illustrations complement the authoritative text, giving insight into this marvel of space-age technology."
—Flying Models
NASA’s Space Shuttle is the only winged manned spacecraft ever to achieve Earth orbit and return for landing, and it is the only reusable space vehicle ever to make multiple flights into orbit. To blast a shuttle off the ground and into orbit takes 7½ million pounds of thrust, burning 1,000 gallons of liquid propellants and 20,000 pounds of solid fuel every second. The shuttle’s primary missions are to carry large payloads into Earth orbit, provide crew rotation for the International Space Station, and perform a variety of different service missions. Designed between 1969 and 1972 and first flown into space in 1981, six orbiters have been built (Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger, Atlantis, Discovery, and Endeavour), but only five have flown in space. Entering retirement in 2011 after a thirty-year career, the shuttles have flown almost 140 missions.
The NASA Space Shuttle Owners’ Workshop Manual explores the shuttle’s design, construction, and use and provides detailed information about the technical attention required before and after a mission. This manual contains a full explanation of the operation of its systems for life support, electrical power production, cooling, propulsion, flight control, communications, landing, and avionics. More than 250 photographs and technical illustrations complement the authoritative text, giving insight into this marvel of space-age technology.
About the Author
David Baker joined the U.S. space program during the Apollo years and later worked on the development of NASA’s Space Shuttle. Baker has worked with NASA on the Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle programs between 1965 and 1984. He has written more than eighty books on spaceflight technology, is a former editor of Jane’s, and is currently the editor of Aviation News.
