ISAIAH'S INFO

Hello my name is Isaiah, actually I'm Max but I'm just filling in for Isaiah because he has a horrible cold and he has been throwing up all day, I find it quite gross if you ask me, even though you didn't ask me, so I guess I better stop babbling on about nothing and get down to business, OH NO! Isaiah is coming back, I think he has gotten a lot better and he will be able to do his wor........... Hello? Oh don't worry, I got rid of Max and I tied him up, so anyways, on my menu of this project we have.... COOL STUFF, COOL STUFF AND MORE COOL STUFF.

The REALLLL Introduction

Hi, in Isaiah’s project you will find more information on space shuttles than anything else…In the next few paragraphs you will find information on space, space shuttles and more interesting facts.  Enjoy! P.S: there will also be a quiz at the end, so go explore…

Space Shuttle Motors

To ensure that the space shuttle reaches the space station, it needs a lot of fuel.  Liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen are mixed to create the propellant (rocket fuel). All three of the main engines on the orbiter use 547, 523 kilograms of liquid oxygen and 91,708 kilograms of liquid hydrogen.  So, all in all, the amount of rocket fuel weighs 639,231 kilograms. This fuel is situated in the largest fuel tank, but what are we going to do with all this fuel?

The propellant is nothing without power.  Now we have to convert the fuel into energy.  Each motor provides 547, 523 kilograms of pressure.  That is 16,425,090 kilograms of pressure provided by the engines together.  Each engine must burn for 8 minutes, and will be re-used on other missions.  

Space shuttle

A space shuttle in launch starts going fast -- really fast. In eight minutes the Space Shuttle can reach speeds up to 17,000 miles per hour.

Saturn 5

Saturn 5 was made to go all the way to the moon.  Other space shuttles don’t even have the power to get out of the atmosphere. This space shuttle is nearly the height of the Statue of Liberty, including the pedestal! It takes literally millions and millions of pounds of pressure to lift this baby up and out of the atmosphere. As big as this space shuttle is, it can only carry three passengers because they need all the room they can get to store the fuel and engines. By the time they reach the moon, only two of them can go on the Lunar Lander to the moon’s surface

Composition of the atmosphere

Space

Here is an image at the frontier of space.  Space starts 62 miles (exactly 100 kilometers) from Earth.  You can see that space is really high.  In your life, you have probably never flown higher than 8-9 miles, equivalent to 36,000 feet.  That is the height at which commercial planes fly, and it is called the lower stratosphere. Once you get to space (62 miles high), you still haven’t left the atmosphere. To actually get into open space, you need to reach higher than 300 kilometers.  

The Three Main Orbiter Models

The names of the three most well-known models of space shuttle orbiters are as follows:  Columbia, Discovery and Endeavor.  These models started as early as 1962, and have flown approximately 20 missions in their space shuttle life.  It is likely that these models will stop flying missions in 2005.  

Here is a picture of a space shuttle re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere.  You can see the metal underneath the orbiter turning a white-orangey colour as it heats up because of the air-resistance.  Thanks to a state-of-the-art heat shield, the shuttle is protected from vaporizing into thin air. 

Poof!