In 1981, an era of human space exploration began. NASA launched its first space shuttle, Discovery, in April 1981 and -- since that historic flight -- more than 100 missions have brought hundreds of astronauts into orbit.
In 2011, 30 years after the first launch of Discovery, the shuttle program is drawing to a close and -- on April 29 -- Space Shuttle Endeavour is slated to embark on its final journey to the cosmos on Space Transportation System (STS) Mission no. 134.
Amid funding controversy and the uncertain future of the American space program, the launch of STS-134 will showcase the culmination of decades of engineering and human achievement. Notable for many reasons, Endeavour's final journey will also exemplify an extraordinary feat of the human will as Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords -- the victim of an assassination attempt in January -- will be in attendance to watch her husband and commander of STS-134, Cdr. Mark Kelly, pilot the shuttle into the history books.
Despite all of the scientific and technological accomplishment over the last three decades by NASA engineers, scientists and astronauts, though, the space program has experienced a waning level of public interest. Many question the usefulness of a space program when millions of Americans are out of work. Others may wonder why we haven't gone back to the moon, much less to Mars and beyond.
The shuttle program, however, has meant much more than simply firing human beings into orbit. In fact, without the space program, we would also find ourselves without some technologies considered 'basic' by today's standards. Medical imaging, satellite technologies, fire-retardant fabric and cordless tools all owe their birth to NASA. This facet of the space program, however, does not often reach the public. Enter, the NASA Tweetup.
Twitter has rapidly become one of the most influential social networking websites on the planet. In a single day, Twitter can spark a "celebrity death-rumor" and help facilitate a large-scale political revolution. With its short, concise messaging system, Twitter has evolved into the perfect medium for spreading information to millions of people in a short amount of time. In 2009, NASA took advantage of these features and began to host "Tweetups" (a play on the phrase 'meet up') for dedicated followers of the space program. In March, NASA received well over 4,000 applications from around the world for its most recent event centered on the final launch of Endeavour and selected only 150 lucky attendees, myself included.
These 150 'NASA Tweeters' receive a behind-the-scenes tour of the Kennedy Space Center and the opportunity to meet former NASA astronauts and engineers, as well as full press clearance and the opportunity to view the launch from miles closer than any other civilians. In exchange, NASA Tweeters, well, Tweet and blog about the event and publicize the space program in the hopes that their writing will increase the American space program's visibility among previously unreached audiences.
The NASA Tweetup for STS-134, the final launch of Endeavour, will take place on April 28 and 29, with the launch scheduled for 3:47 p.m. (15:47) EST on the 29th. You can follow my NASA Tweetup experience via my Twitter account or by following the feed located on my Huffington Post bio page. You can also see Tweets from 149 other selected Tweeters -- including Seth Green and LeVar Burton -- by searching the hash tag '#NASATweetup' on Twitter at any time over the next two days and by following NASA's official Tweetup account.
Follow Michael Yarbrough on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mikeyarbrough
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The Shuttle era was not an era of human space exploration, because we didn't do any exploration. The Shuttle era could best be described as an era of refining human spaceflight operations, and in this context, the program succeeded in all ways except for cost. complexity, and safety.
We're learned a lot of operational concepts during the Shuttle era, especially in the areas of on-orbit assembly, extravehicular activity, and joint human-robotic operations. Through our participation in the International Space Station, we've also learned quit a lot about long-duration spaceflight.
These are all important areas of technical development in support of future exploration missions, but this is not exploration in itself. It's more of a preparatory step.
This is how George Mueller and Tom Paine initially conceived the post-Apollo space program. In order to approach the exploration of Mars, a space station would be constructed in earth orbit as a testbed for long-duration spaceflight. To improve the economy of logistical supply, the concept of a reusable space shuttle was introduced, but the station modules were to be launched using a two-stage Saturn V. The shuttle was supposed to be a considerably smaller vehicle, carrying only astronauts, provisions, and small equipment -- no payload bay for large modules or satellites.
But NASA could only get funding for Shuttle if they cancelled Saturn V and made Shuttle big enough to carry military spy satellites. This made Shuttle so expensive that we couldn't afford to build a space station until the Cold War ended and we could team up with the Russians.
You should check out the SNC Dream Chaser, a contender for NASA's Commercial Crew Transport program. It's basically the kind of space shuttle that Mueller and Paine envisioned in the late 60s:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Chaser
Thanks for reading.