Wings In Orbit: Scientific And Engineering Legacies Of The Space Shuttle, 1971-2010

Aviation Week article-- March, 2011 Posted by Mark Carreau

www.aviationweek.com/blogs/aw/space

As Discovery's astronauts settled onto the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on March 9 it was inescapably clear the long-running U.S. Space Shuttle Program is in de-orbit prep.

Endeavour and Atlantis are scheduled to fly for the final time within several weeks.

What's less certain is how the three-decade long flight test program will be judged by its investors, the American public. Will the shuttle's impressive capabilities be truly missed? Or were the winged orbiters, with their inability to leave low Earth orbit, an expensive detour to missions grander than Apollo's?

"Wings In Orbit: Scientific and Engineering Legacies of the Space Shuttle," is a 553-page, firsthand account of the efforts to develop and sustain a reusable spacecraft with the technologies of the sixties and seventies. The effort is focused on the shuttle program's heritage, operational strategy, engineering innovation and contributions to science, education and as well as its social legacy,
"The shuttle was to be the first commercially successful space transport," Wings quickly advises with surprising candor. "This impossible leap was not realized, an unrealistic goal that appears patently obvious in retrospect, yet it haunts the history of the shuttle to this day."

In all, Wings combines contributions from more than 325 men and women whose professional careers were intertwined with the shuttle's accomplishments and limitations as well as others who were swept up because of the program's long run and the wide assortment of missions.

The orbiters ushered satellites into space for astronomers, climate researchers, national security interests, planetary scientists and commercial satellite operators. They've flown as temporary space stations for biologists, biotechnologists, chemists, medical researchers and physicists. Shuttle crews have salvaged and repai

Reviews from Goodreads: Steve posted four stars on this title in Goodreads and had this to say, "Edited and written by individuals involved in the Shuttle Program, "Wings in Orbit" is one book every space buff must have in their collection. Certainly there are other more technical books on the program. Wings, given the limitations, does a good job of giving an over view of what was accomplished in the 30 year program."