A Rocket To Nowhere (Idle Words) Most of the really wrong design decisions in the Shuttle system — the side-mounted orbiter, solid rocket boosters, lack of air-breathing engines, no escape system, fragile heat protection — were the direct fallout of this design phase, when tight budgets and onerous Air Force requirements forced engineers to improvise […]
NASA
Tag Archive
May 15
2013
Feb 22
2008
The Smell of Space
“The best description I can come up with is metallic; a rather pleasant sweet metallic sensation. It reminded me of my college summers where I labored for many hours with an arc welding torch repairing heavy equipment for a small logging outfit. It reminded me of pleasant sweet smelling welding fumes. That is the smell of space.”
—ISS Science Officer Don Pettit: Expedition Six Space Chronicles #4
(via Boing Boing)