The Space Shuttle: A Mission-by-Mission Celebration of NASA's Extraordinary Spaceflight Program

by Roland Miller

“Any backyard astronomer or space enthusiast would be delighted to have this visual journey on their shelf.” 
— The Strategist , The Year’s Most Giftable Coffee-Table Books

A Barnes & Noble Best Gift Book of 2022
 
A  Publishers Weekly  Holiday Gift Guide 2022 selection

6 orbiters, 140 missions, 355 astronauts, 500,000,000 miles—all in one rich and beautiful photographic journey The Space Shuttle  tells the story of NASA’s amazing Space Shuttle program and its 140 space flights (135 missions, plus five Approach and Landing Tests) in a uniquely designed and covetable way. Long before the James Webb Telescope rekindled our fascination with astronomy and our place in the cosmos, the Space Shuttle began to capture the world’s attention with its first mission (a test launch) on April 12, 1981 and continued to do so until its final mission on July 8, 2011. The program’s six orbiter vehicles are Enterprise , Columbia , Challenger , Discovery , Atlantis , and Endeavour .

Each mission has its own fascinating story, and The Space Shuttle  retells these stories, in chronological order, through incredible photos taken by NASA photojournalists, fine art photographers, and the astronauts themselves. Each image is accompanied by a short text that includes quick facts such as crew members, launch date, and landing date, as well as a short overview of highlights and purpose. For example, STS-78’s mission was to study circadian rhythms in space; STS-41G’s mission was to take photographs in-flight, seen in the IMAX movie The Dream Is Alive ; and famously, the first untethered space walk, taken by astronaut Bruce McCandless on STS-41B using a self-propelled backpack unit (called a Man Maneuvering Unit [MMU]), allowed astronauts to capture satellites for retrieval and repair and for the planned construction of what became the International Space Station (ISS). Prior to this mission, astronauts were attached to the shuttle with safety lines. The photo of McCandless floating above Earth’s surface is one of the most celebrated and famous space photographs ever. These are just a few of the 140 stories Miller tells in this beautiful volume.
 

Genres: Nonfiction, Space, Science, Astronomy

320 pages, Hardcover

Published November 8, 2022

Reviews

[Leon Vincenzo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the best photography of the Space Shuttle program you will ever see. The research behind it was phenomenal. The only flaw is the amount of repetition in it, constantly repeating various objects and this is mainly due to the nature of lack of detailed information around each shuttle mission. Probably didn’t need a page for each mission, but the photography made up for it.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are interested in the Shuttle Era of the Space Program, you will love this book. The pictures are stunning and it is an easy read. Every shuttle mission is covered and there are interesting facts for each as well as the details such as time in space, purpose, astronauts, etc.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

The hero of this story is The Space Shuttle. There are some pictures of astronauts as they relate to the Space Shuttle, but it's not really about them. This book is exactly what the title says it is, with each page containing a high level overview of every mission and, for most missions, a picture.

The Space Shuttle was a truly amazing piece of machinery and, perhaps more importantly for a book with so many pictures, it just plain looks really cool, especially when it's on the launch pad or taking off. If you were to flip through this book just for the pictures, it would be worth it. I did end up reading the whole thing. The coverage of each mission was short and often contained a repeat of information so if you were to pick and choose which mission you wanted to read about, you would not be lost.

I did find a mistake on page 189 which had a reference to page 197. This should be a reference to page 179. This was about the first astronaut to fly aboard a Soyuz spacecraft to work on Mir. He then flew home aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis. What a trip!

Here are a few of my takeaways from this book.
1. There was a ton of research done on these shuttle missions. Seriously, I feel like every time I turned the page I was reading about a science mission. I hope this science is being reexamined today with new eyes but I imagine there is a lot of data just sitting there waiting to be looked at.
2. The Hubble telescope would not be operational without the Space Shuttle.
3. The Space Shuttle program was instrumental in repairing relationships with Russia and building The International Space Station.

Perhaps The Shuttle program was too ambitious. I didn't realize there were supposed to be 24 missions per year. Looking back, it seems silly that anyone believed that could be possible. If it had proceeded more slowly, maybe we would not have had the tragedies with Challenger and Columbia. But then again, maybe we would, if not on those missions then on another. Smarter minds than mine knew it was only a matter of time. Even so, I am of the camp of people that think it was a huge mistake to end the Space Shuttle program without a proper replacement.

I read this book concurrently with Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space and that one did contain some of the astronaut bios that people are hungry for and enhanced my reading of this book. I recommend both!

[Jeff French · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book (also known as The Space Shuttle: a Mission-by-Mission Celebration of NASA's Extraordinary Spaceflight Program; same ISBN) is a wonderful collection of pictures taken of, during and by the 30 years of space shuttle flights. Each mission is featured with at least one photo, and is described in an extended caption with a sidebar listing the number, date and crew of each. The captions describe the purpose and highlights of each flight and point out several interesting facts regarding each mission, such as unexpected problems, or historical notes, such as the first American woman in space, the first woman to be pilot or commander, and the time that there were four women in space simultaneously. A nice part of the book is its focus on the accomplishments of the space shuttle program, even though it was touched by tragedy and is often seen as less exciting than the programs in in the moon project, Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. The book makes it clear that the shuttles made great contributions to the current state of space exploration.

[Em L · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most visually stunning book I’ve ever owned. An informative, but easy to to read, play by play of each space shuttle mission, detailing the wins and the devastating losses in our exploration to see beyond our own world. Very glad I bit the bullet and purchased the book.

[Braden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful photography and high quality book construction and materials. A bit dry, but still—space!

[Krissy Davenport · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another beautiful look into the space programs I love so much