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I saw a Shuttle launch way back in 1984 when my squadron deployed a detachment to Patrick AFB, ten miles south of Cape Canaveral, to support the FAC school. The airborne forward air controllers practiced marking targets for us to bomb out in the Everglades. We all went out after a flight briefing to watch that Shuttle go directly up in an impressive display of brute power. The next day we did a low approach to the Shuttle runway on the way home which was pretty cool to do. The astronauts parked their NASA T-38s on the tarmac next to us, which was cool, too.

They have a Space Shuttle at the Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air & Space Museum at Dulles airport here in Washington, DC. It’s a test ship that never flew in orbit, only on the back of the transport B747, but it’s still impressive. I imagine once they retire the Shuttle, flying ships will make their way to museums all over the States.

I recall the day in a science class at the Air Force Academy when they brought in one of the Shuttle’s thermal tiles. The instructor placed it in a kiln with tongs, heated it up until it was glowing orange, and pulled it out. By the time he laid it down on the ceramic plate on the table, the corners of the tile had already lost their glow. He whipped off his asbestos glove and picked up the glowing tile with his bare hand, which startled the class. The material of which the tile is made is such a good insulator that it conducts very little heat within it. The surface cools off immediately

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I have seen photographs of the shuttle launch taken from the International Space Station. You could only see the bright flare of the rocket because the earth below was so vast.

Steve;

As I recall, there is some importance to launching from the FL latitude. Orbital entry angle needing to be shallow or somesuch.

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Beautiful photograph.

Steve, what I’ve always found really fascinating is how broadcast satellites that are over 117 million feet above the earth’s surface remain in constant geosynchronous orbit with our planet.

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Random question – have you spent some time in Aberdeen, Scotland?

I only ask because of your use of ‘dinna ken’, which tickled me!

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Once it achieves orbit, the Shuttle, or any spacecraft, does not need to point towards its flight path like an airplane in the atmosphere. It can be oriented in any direction and still travel in the same orbit, west to east. The old rule of thumb of aviation, “Pointy end first,” does not apply in space. This photo looks like the Shuttle is yawed ninety degrees right of its flight path and pitched up.

It’s easy to get into orbit launching east because the rotation of the Earth gives you a giant push. It’s enormously difficult to orbit the Earth from pole to pole because you gain no advantage from the Earth’s rotation when launching north or south. That’s why moons orbit roughly along the equatorial plane of their parent planets.

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