Video: The last Space Shuttle departed. But he promised to return
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
It has become a commonplace that the USSR lost the Cold War - but still it won in some way. Twenty years after its death, the former Soviet Union has become the leader of the world space race, and Russia is the only country that can send a man into space. Program " Space shuttle", the hope and support of the American space, is closed. And we, while the last of the US sky ships circling around the International Space Station, remember what we were Star Envoys "Space Shuttle" for humanity and look at their landmark photos.
Space shuttle program"began to be developed by order of NASA in 1971. It was" their response "to Soviet disposable ships: economic Americans hated the idea of sending thousands of tons of metal, fuel and plastic into the sky, billions of man-hours of labor - and wave their hand at them. Space shuttle reusable shuttle ships - the embodiment of logic and romance of space travel. And there were six of them.
Six Riders of the Rocket Jet. The lazy Enterprise that never flew anywhere. Loser - "Challenger" exploded in orbit. Burnt out hero - "Columbia". Veterans of the star roads "Endeavor" (25 flights) and "Discovery" (39 flights). And finally, Atlantis. The birth of the fourth brainchild of NASA was destined to be the last: 3 days ago, on July 8, 2011, this ship took off in front of hundreds of thousands of spectators on the final journey of the "space shuttle". By now, it has already been docked to the ISS, and on July 18 it will go on its last journey home.
For forty years, the US government experienced a gradual disillusionment with space shuttles. The huge ship weighs 2,000 tons at takeoff - and only a 24-ton "piece" arrives in orbit. And she still needs to be safely returned to Earth. The "lean" space program cost 14 astronaut lives and $ 200 billion - while the equally efficient "Soyuz" cost only 2 billion a year.
The impoverished superpower is gradually turning its eyes away from the sky - even cartoonists have noticed the scarcity of pennies for exploring the Moon. But the space shuttle has promised to return: NASA is already thinking about new ships that should be developed by 2016. Until then the last "space shuttle" returns to Earth to take a place in the museum as one of the highest achievements of mankind.
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