Echoes Among the Stars: The Original Website
Echoes Among the Stars — Chapter Twelve
Echoes: The Shuttle Era and Beyond
“The U.S. space program of the new millenium owes a great deal to those early days: to the space race... and to the hard word of the thousands who spent their days developing a whole new world of equipment and systems, embroidering a path into space and ultimately to the surface of the moon from the whole cloth of unproved theory and romantic dreams.” -- page 162
• Topics Covered in This Chapter
• Topics for Discussion
• Historical Context
• Possible Writing Assignments
Topics Covered in This Chapter
• Columbia: The U.S. Returns to Space
• Shuttle Era Goals and Approach
• Soviet Space Program During the 1970s and 1980s
• Shuttle Technology: Vehicle and Systems
• U.S. Defense Department Role in Shuttle Program
• Shuttle Scheduling Difficulties
• The New Astronaut
• Sally Ride: First American Woman in Space
• Repair of the Solar Max Satellite
• Unspeakable Loss: The Challenger Disaster
• Investigation of the Challenger Explosion
• Post-Challenger: Return to Flight
• Soviet Space Station Mir
• Lunar Prospector and Mars Pathfinder Probes
• John Glenn’s Return to Space
• Echoes of the Early Era in the Shuttle Program and Beyond
Topics for Discussion
Some good shuttle-related discussion can center around the nature of the shuttle transportation system, how it has fulfilled the goal of enabling the commercialization of space, and how well it succeeds in the larger context of shaping the nation’s views of the purpose and potential of space exploration.
Historical Context
The Reagan Administration
The Bush Administration
Fall of the Berlin Wall
The Persian Gulf War
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
The Clinton Administration
U.S. diplomatic opening to Vietnam
Possible Writing Assignments
College
Do some light research on the Apollo and Space Shuttle projects, then write an essay about how the goals of each of these projects reflected American society at the time they were begun.
High School
Write an essay that compares John Glenn’s 1962 Mercury spaceflight with his return to space in 1998, aboard the space shuttle Discovery.
K-8
Write a short essay about why you might like to travel on the space shuttle.
Some good shuttle-related discussion can center around the nature of the shuttle transportation system, how it has fulfilled the goal of enabling the commercialization of space, and how well it succeeds in the larger context of shaping the nation’s views of the purpose and potential of space exploration.
Historical Context
The Reagan Administration
The Bush Administration
Fall of the Berlin Wall
The Persian Gulf War
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
The Clinton Administration
U.S. diplomatic opening to Vietnam
Possible Writing Assignments
College
Do some light research on the Apollo and Space Shuttle projects, then write an essay about how the goals of each of these projects reflected American society at the time they were begun.
High School
Write an essay that compares John Glenn’s 1962 Mercury spaceflight with his return to space in 1998, aboard the space shuttle Discovery.
K-8
Write a short essay about why you might like to travel on the space shuttle.
