The Entire Shuttle Orbiter Fleet Feature Review Articles

[Chris Bergin]

The full set from Chris Gebhardt's fleet overviews. All five space flown orbiters, and now Enterprise too - every single shuttle mission over the past 30 years. Nine articles - 59,000 words.

Take some time to read the amazing history of these vehicles.

Enterprise
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2012/04/space-shuttle-enterprise-the-orbiter-that-started-it-all/


Columbia:
Part I:
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2011/02/space-shuttle-columbia-a-new-beginning-and-vision/

Part II:
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2011/02/columbia-ov-102-a-pioneer-to-the-end/

Challenger:
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2011/01/1983-1986-missions-history-space-shuttle-challenger/

Discovery:
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2011/02/workhorse-discovery-stands-ready-for-final-mission/

Atlantis:
Part I:
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2011/07/ov-104atlantis-international-vehicle-changing-world/

Part II:
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2011/07/shuttle-atlantis-mir-realization-program-goal/

Part III:
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2011/07/reaching-end-atlantis-fight-against-retirement/

Endeavour:
Part I: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2011/04/space-shuttle-endeavour-a-new-beginning-part-i/

Part II:
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2011/04/ov-105-endeavour-a-long-standing-dream-realized/

[Longhorn John]

I've already read all of these, when I read through the new Atlantis ones, and they are all EXCELLENT!

No doubt, whiners and moaners will be too busy reading how much money it cost, but they could have spent 10 times as much and to get all this space flight out of it would have been very worthwhile.

[KEdward5]

Hail the orbiters!!

[astrobrian]

This is that good book you haven't read yet, amazing work on all of them.

[KEdward5]

Totally and utterly outstanding!

[Terry Rocket]

A totally must read if ever there was one. This should be made into a book.

[Chris Bergin]

Bump. This shouldn't be on page 3 of the section.

[Ronsmytheiii]

Bumping again, only missing Enterprise (yes she did not fly in space, but did much for the program)

Chris G, looks like you have started a book here.  Xerox it and sell it to HQ for a few hundred dollars a copy.

[Andre_Berends]

Interesting reading material... thanks!

[Skylab]

While I'm pretty impressed by all those articles, perhaps it's a good idea to tone down the statistics a bit? Nothing wrong with the latest article, but the others were slightly info-heavy!

[Space Pete]

While I'm pretty impressed by all those articles, perhaps it's a good idea to tone down the statistics a bit? Nothing wrong with the latest article, but the others were slightly info-heavy!

You can never be too info-heavy, IMO - that's one of the reasons why I love this site.

[Chris Bergin]

While I'm pretty impressed by all those articles, perhaps it's a good idea to tone down the statistics a bit? Nothing wrong with the latest article, but the others were slightly info-heavy!

You missed the special twitter version:

"Atlantis - otherwise known as OV-104 - named after an old ship, went to MIR and ISS, now retired. THE END"

[Lee Jay]

While I'm pretty impressed by all those articles, perhaps it's a good idea to tone down the statistics a bit? Nothing wrong with the latest article, but the others were slightly info-heavy!

You can never be too info-heavy, IMO - that's one of the reasons why I love this site.

Sure you can.

One of the reasons I love this site is Chris' ability to turn 500MB of separate NASA presentations and documents into a cohesive, informative article that leaves out most of the less important information while highlighting the really important stuff.  It's a difficult skill that not everyone can master, but he's really quite good at it.  For those of us that have limited time to devour everything on L2, this is quite important, and we can always go back to L2 to dig in if we're interested in more.

You do that pretty well too, Pete.

[Tim S]

Going to have to go through all of these!

[Chris Bergin]

Now we have the full set!

Space Shuttle Enterprise – The Orbiter that started it all - by Chris Gebhardt:
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2012/04/space-shuttle-enterprise-the-orbiter-that-started-it-all/