space shuttle

Space shuttle, reusable U.S. space vehicle. Developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), it consists of a winged orbiter, two solid-rocket boosters, and an external tank. As with previous spacecraft, the shuttle is launched from a vertical position. Liftoff thrust is derived from the orbiter's three main liquid-propellant engines and the boosters. After 2 min the boosters use up their fuel, separate from the spacecraft, and—after deployment of parachutes—are recovered following splashdown. After about 8 min of flight, the orbiter's main engines shut down; the external tank is then jettisoned and burns up as it reenters the atmosphere. The orbiter meanwhile enters orbit after a short burn of its two small Orbiting Maneuvering System (OMS) engines. To return to earth, the orbiter turns around, fires its OMS engines to reduce speed, and, after descending through the atmosphere, lands like a glider. Five different orbiters—Columbia, Challenger, Atlantis, Discovery, and Endeavour—have seen service; two have been lost in accidents.

Following four orbital test flights (1981–82) of the space shuttle Columbia, operational flights began in Nov., 1982. On Jan. 28, 1986, the Challenger exploded shortly after takeoff, killing all seven astronauts. The commission that investigated the disaster determined that the failure of the O-ring seal in one of the solid fuel rockets was responsible. Shuttle flights were halted until Sept., 1988, while design problems were corrected, and then resumed on a more conservative schedule. NASA was forced to reemphasize expendable rockets to reduce the cost of placing payloads in space.

A second disaster struck the shuttle program on Feb. 1, 2003, when the Columbia broke up during reentry, killing the seven astronauts on board. NASA again halted shuttle launches, and a special commission was appointed to investigate the accident. It is believed that damage to the left wing, which could have been caused by insulation that separated from the external fuel tank during launch, ultimately permitted superheated gas to flow into the wing, weaken it, and cause its failure. Modifications were made to external fuel tank and other parts of the shuttle, and shuttle flights resumed in July, 2005. Further problems with fuel tank insulation that developed during that launch led to the suspension of additional flights for a year while the problems were corrected.

Missions of the space shuttle have included the transport of the Spacelab scientific workshop (see space exploration) and the insertion into orbit of the Hubble Space Telescope (1990), the Galileo space probe (1989), the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (1999), and a wide variety of communications, weather, scientific, and defense-related satellites. Other notable achievements of the shuttle program include the rescue and repair of disabled satellites (including the Hubble Space Telescope in 1993 and 1999) and the first three-person spacewalk (1992). In 1995 the Endeavour's mission of Mar. 2–18 set the record for the longest shuttle flight. It was also in 1995 that the crew of Atlantis accomplished the first of nine shuttle-Mir (Russian space station) docking maneuvers and crew transfers, which were designed to pave the way for the assembly of the International Space Station (ISS). The crew of Discovery made the ninth and final docking in 1998, five months before the Russians orbited Zarya, the first ISS module. A month later the astronauts aboard Endeavour initiated the first assembly sequence of the ISS, linking the Unity module, a passageway that will connect living and work areas of the station, to Zarya. In 1999 the Discovery crew accomplished the first docking of a shuttle with the ISS during a mission to supply the two modules with tools and cranes.

Development of Rockets

The invention of the rocket is generally ascribed to the Chinese, who as early as A.D. 1000 stuffed gunpowder into sections of bamboo tubing to make military weapons of considerable effectiveness. The 13th-century English monk Roger Bacon introduced to Europe an improved form of gunpowder, which enabled rockets to become incendiary projectiles with a relatively long range. Rockets subsequently became a common if unreliable weapon. Major progress in design resulted from the work of William Congreve, an English artillery expert, who built a 20-lb (9-kg) rocket capable of traveling up to 2 mi (3 km). In the late 19th cent., the Austrian physicist Ernst Mach gave serious theoretical consideration to supersonic speeds and predicted the shock wave that causes sonic boom.

The astronautical use of rockets was cogently argued in the beginning of the 20th cent. by the Russian Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky, who is sometimes called the "father of astronautics." He pointed out that a rocket can operate in a vacuum and suggested that multistage liquid-fuel rockets could escape the earth's gravitation. The greatest name in American rocketry is Robert H. Goddard, whose pamphlet A Method for Reaching Extreme Altitudes anticipated nearly all modern developments. Goddard launched the first liquid-fuel rocket in 1926 and demonstrated that rockets could be used to carry scientific apparatus into the upper atmosphere. His work found its most receptive audience in Germany. During World War II, a German team under Wernher von Braun developed the V-2 rocket, which was the first long-range guided missile. The V-2 had a range greater than 200 mi (322 km) and reached velocities of 3,500 mi (5,600 km) per hr.

After the war, rocket research in the United States and the Soviet Union intensified, leading to the development first of intercontinental ballistic missiles and then of modern spacecraft. Important U.S. rockets have included the Redstone, Jupiter, Atlas, Titan, Agena, Centaur, and Saturn carriers. Saturn V, the largest rocket ever assembled, developed 7.5 million lb (3.4 million kg) of thrust. A three-stage rocket, it stood 300 ft (91 m) high exclusive of payload and with the Apollo delivered a payload of 44 tons to the moon. Rockets presently being used to launch manned and unmanned missions into space include the U.S. Athena 1 and 2, Taurus, Titan 2 and 4B, Delta 2, 3, and 4, Atlas 2 ,3, and 5, and STS or space shuttle; the Chinese Long March 2C, 2E, and 2F; the Russian Soyuz and Proton K and M; the Japanese H-2A; the European Space Agency's Ariane 5 series; the Indian PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle); the Israeli Shavit 2; the Brazilian VSV-30; and the multinational, private Sea Launch Zenit-3SL, which uses a converted oil platform located some 1,400 mi (2,250 km) southeast of Hawaii.

See also space science.

rocket

Rocket, any vehicle propelled by ejection of the gases produced by combustion of self-contained propellants. Rockets are used in fireworks, as military weapons, and in scientific applications such as space exploration.

Rocket Propulsion

The force acting on a rocket, called its thrust, is equal to the mass ejected per second times the velocity of the expelled gases. This force can be understood in terms of Newton's third law of motion, which states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In the case of a rocket, the action is the backward-streaming flow of gas and the reaction is the forward motion of the rocket. Another way of understanding rocket propulsion is to realize that tremendous pressure is exerted on the walls of the combustion chamber except where the gas exits at the rear; the resulting unbalanced force on the front interior wall of the chamber pushes the rocket forward. A common misconception, before space exploration pointed up its obvious fallacy, holds that a rocket accelerates by pushing on the atmosphere behind it. Actually, a rocket operates more efficiently in outer space, since there is no atmospheric friction to impede its motion.

Rocket Propellants

The most vital component of any rocket is the propellant, which accounts for 90% to 95% of the rocket's total weight. A propellant consists of two elements, a fuel and an oxidant; engines that are based on the action-reaction principle and that use air instead of carrying their own oxidant are properly called jets. Propellants in use today include both liquefied gases, which are more powerful, and solid explosives, which are more reliable; the space shuttle's main engines use liquid propellant, while its boosters are solid-fuel rockets. The chemical energy of the propellants is released in the form of heat in the combustion chamber.

A typical liquid engine uses hydrogen as fuel and oxygen as oxidant; a typical solid propellant is nitroglycerine. In the liquid engine, the fuel and oxidant are stored separately at extremely low temperatures; in the solid engine, the fuel and oxidant are intimately mixed and loaded directly into the combustion chamber. A solid engine requires an ignition system, as does a liquid engine if the propellants do not ignite spontaneously on contact.

The efficiency of a rocket engine is defined as the percentage of the propellant's chemical energy that is converted into kinetic energy of the vehicle. During the first few seconds after liftoff, a rocket is extremely inefficient, for at least two unavoidable reasons: High power consumption is required to overcome the inertia of the nearly motionless mass of the fully fueled rocket; and in the lower atmosphere, power is wasted overcoming air resistance. Once the rocket gains altitude, however, it becomes more efficient. as the trajectory, at first vertical, curves into a suborbital arc or into the desired orbit.

see: Development of Rockets 

Photochemistry

Photochemistry, study of chemical processes that are accompanied by or catalyzed by the emission or absorption of visible light or ultraviolet radiation. A molecule in its ground (unexcited) state can absorb a quantum of light energy, or photon, and go to a higher-energy state, or excited state (see quantum theory). Such a molecule is then much more reactive than a ground-state molecule and can undergo entirely different reactions than the more stable molecule, following several different reaction pathways. One possibility is that it can simply emit the absorbed light and fall back to the ground state. This process, called chemiluminescence, is illustrated by various glow-in-the-dark objects. Another possibility is for the molecule to take part in a photo-induced chemical reaction; it may break apart (photodissociate), rearrange, isomerize, dimerize, eliminate or add small molecules, or even transfer its energy to another molecule. Photochromic compounds—compounds that change color reversibly in going from the dark to the light—are generally compounds that are capable of reversible isomerization, or rearrangement. In the absence of light, the compound exists in its most stable form, which exhibits a particular color; in the presence of light, the compound goes to a less stable form, which exhibits a different color. After removal of the light, the compound will revert back to its original state. The best-known and most important photochemical reaction is photosynthesis, the complex, chlorophyll-catalyzed synthesis of sugars from carbon dioxide and water in the presence of light. Other extremely important and complex photochemical reactions take place in the eye. Photochemistry is indispensible to industries involved with dyes, photography, television, and many other applications of light and color.

Aerosol dispenser

Aerosol dispenser, device designed to produce a fine spray of liquid or solid particles that can be suspended in a gas such as the atmosphere. The dispenser commonly consists of a container that holds under pressure the substance to be dispersed (e.g., paints, insecticides, medications, and hair sprays) and a liquefied gas propellant. When a valve is released, the propellant forces the substance through an atomizer and out of the dispenser in the form of a fine spray. These devices are more properly termed spray dispensers rather than aerosol dispensers because the particles of the dispersed substance are usually larger than the particles of a true aerosol (see colloid), such as a fog or a smoke. Freon was the most common aerosol propellant, but its use has been banned because it is believed to contribute to destruction of the ozone layer of the stratosphere; common propellants now include propane, butane, and other hydrocarbons.