Space Shuttle Columbia CrashColumbia, the first Space Shuttle to ever be launched, experienced a disaster on February 1, 2003 whilst entering the earth's atmosphere. About 82 seconds after launch a piece of foam insulation broke off from the Space Shuttle's external wing and struck the left wing. The Shuttle disintegrated over Texas and Louisiana and killed all 7 of its crew members. This was the Shuttles 28th mission.
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The crew from left to right: David Brown, Rick Husband, Laurel Clark, Kalpana Chawla, Michel Anderson, William McCool, and IIan Ramon
How Much Does it Cost to Build A Space Shuttle? The Space Shuttle Endeavour, the orbiter built to replace the Space Shuttle Challenger, cost approximately $1.7 billion. Endeavour was the latest model to be used. To launch a Space Shuttle it costs $450 million per mission.
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Space Shuttle: MannedManned Spacecraft had been around 20 years prior to the Space Shuttle launch in 1981. In 1961 Yuri Gagrin was the first man in space on Vostok 1. Although it wasn't the first Spacecraft in flight, the Space Shuttle was the first reusable Spacecraft. The Space Shuttle was always manned in every launch with 2-8 people, the first people being commander, John W. Young and pilot, Robert L. Crippen.
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SpeedThe Space Shuttle in orbit moved at about 17, 500 miles per hour. At the speed the Shuttle orbited, the crew members could see a sunrise or sunset every 45 minutes.
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