Experimental Blog # 197

Quotations from "Leaving Orbit" - Notes from the Last Days of American Spaceflight by  Margaret Lazarus Dean

"Together the five orbiters Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour have flown a total of 133 successful missions, an unequaled accomplishment of engineering, management, and political savvy. But it's the two disasters that people remember, that most shape the shuttle's story."

"Hugely wasteful; hugely grand. Adjust the focus of your eyes and the same project goes from being the greatest accomplishment of humankind to a pointless show of misspent wealth."
"In reality, the most shuttle launches NASA ever accomplished in a single calendar year was nine, in 1985 - far short of the magic number of twenty-five."
"In all, twenty-four missions launched and landed successfully between April 1981 and January 1986."

"The space shuttle project never did get us any closer to Mars, but it deployed more than half the cargo ever carried to space and sent three hundred fifty-five people into orbit."
"The orbiting laboratory has been occupied non-stop since November 2, 2000 ..."

"Eleven crewed missions, including six successful trips to the lunar surface"
"December 1968: First trip to lunar orbit on Apollo 8"
"December 1972: Final moon landing Apollo 17"

"Ongoing Access to Low-Earth Orbit":
"April 1981: First test flight of space shuttle Columbia"
"July 2011: Final flight of the space shuttle program{Atlantis}