The Space Shuttle (a Mission-by-mission Celebration Of Nasa's Extraordinary Spaceflight Program)

By (author) Miller Roland
Short description/annotation:
The stories behind NASA’s 140 Space Shuttle program flights, as told through each mission’s most exceptional image, curated by celebrated space photographer Roland Miller.
Description:
“Any backyard astronomer or space enthusiast would be delighted to have this visual journey on their shelf.” —The Strategist, The Year’s Most Giftable Coffee-Table BooksA Barnes & Noble Best Gift Book of 2022 A Publishers Weekly Holiday Gift Guide 2022 selection6 orbiters, 140 missions, 355 astronauts, 500,000,000 miles—all in one rich and beautiful photographic journeyThe Space Shuttle tells the story of NASA’s amazing Space Shuttle program and its 140 space flights (135 missions, plus five Approach and Landing Tests) in a uniquely designed and covetable way. Long before the James Webb Telescope rekindled our fascination with astronomy and our place in the cosmos, the Space Shuttle began to capture the world’s attention with its first mission (a test launch) on April 12, 1981 and continued to do so until its final mission on July 8, 2011. The program’s six orbiter vehicles are Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour. Each mission has its own fascinating story, and The Space Shuttle retells these stories, in chronological order, through incredible photos taken by NASA photojournalists, fine art photographers, and the astronauts themselves. Each image is accompanied by a short text that includes quick facts such as crew members, launch date, and landing date, as well as a short overview of highlights and purpose. For example, STS-78’s mission was to study circadian rhythms in space; STS-41G’s mission was to take photographs in-flight, seen in the IMAX movie The Dream Is Alive; and famously, the first untethered space walk, taken by astronaut Bruce McCandless on STS-41B using a self-propelled backpack unit (called a Man Maneuvering Unit [MMU]), allowed astronauts to capture satellites for retrieval and repair and for the planned construction of what became the International Space Station (ISS). Prior to this mission, astronauts were attached to the shuttle with safety lines. The photo of McCandless floating above Earth’s surface is one of the most celebrated and famous space photographs ever. These are just a few of the 140 stories Miller tells in this beautiful volume.
Table of contents:
Contents
 
Preface
Introduction
 
CHAPTER 1
Approach and Landing Tests
ALT-12 (Free Flight 1) to ALT-16 (Free Flight 5)
 
CHAPTER 2
First Launch—The Challenger Tragedy
STS-1 (Mission 1) to STS-51L (Mission 25)
 
CHAPTER 3
New Beginnings—Hubble Deployment
STS-26 (Mission 26) to STS-61 (Mission 59)
 
CHAPTER 4
Shuttle-Mir Missions—John Glenn’s Return to Space
STS-60 (Mission 60) to STS-95 (Mission 92)
 
CHAPTER 5
The International Space Station Construction Begins—The Columbia Tragedy
STS-88 (Mission 93) to STS-107 (Mission 113)
 
CHAPTER 6
A Second Return to Flight—The Final Mission
STS-114 (Mission 114) to STS-135 (Mission 135)
 
Afterword
Glossary
Acknowledgments
Index
Review quote:
“‘Sumptuous’ is an adjective too often used to describe beautifully produced books, so, though that word does in fact describe The Space Shuttle, let’s instead call it ‘stellar. . . .’ [T]he reader leaves this book with a deep sense of awe about the program itself and what it accomplished in helping us to better understand what is above us.”
 —Air Mail
Biographical note:
Roland Miller, a Chicago native, worked in higher education for 30 years, first as a photography professor and later as dean. Miller’s book Abandoned in Place: Preserving America’s Space History documents deactivate