Return-To-Flight Space Shuttle Discovery (Photo Scrapbook) Review

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(More customer reviews)After Columbia's breakup in 2003, NASA began a major rework of the shuttle program resulting in the launch of STS-114, the first of two space shuttle "Return to Flight" missions, in July of 2005. The mission was ultimately a success and it became probably the most photographed mission of the entire space shuttle program. The main reason for the photography is NASA wanted to obtain clear imagery of the shuttle both during ascent and on orbit to see if the modifications made to the external tank to prevent foam loss had worked and to see if any damage had been sustained by the orbiter. After the mission, the shuttle fleet remained grounded due to foam loss from a PAL ramp on STS-114s external tank, but subsequent modifications lead to successful launch of Discovery on STS-121 on July 4th, 2006.
Practically all of the official imagery taken of STS-114 is available online at the NASA websites. But, Dennis Jenkins and Jorge R. Frank have compiled as many pictures as they could find into this 108 page book and provided them in a high quality format. Dennis Jenkins is no stranger to the shuttle program as his "Space Shuttle, the First 100 Missions" hardcover is an excellent resource and history text about the shuttle program.
In addition to the photographs on display, Dennis and Jorge also provide additional tidbits and facts about the shuttle program. In here you see pictures of Atlantis and Discovery during orbital processing, STS-114s original patch design (prior to STS-107s breakup), pictures of the ET, SRB and station hardware that flew on this flight and diagrams of the modifications made to the External Tank. The on orbit pictures of Discovery are the real gems in this book though as you get to see excellent imagery of what a shuttle looks like in orbit. The shuttle's thermal protection system truely is a work of art to look at in orbit. Pictures of the ISS during Discovery's inspection fly around are also provided in these pages.
Now it is possible to download all these pictures and print them out from the NASA websites. But in the process, you would be using A LOT of paper, burning up several ink cartridges in the process and devoting many hours to doing this. Plus, since many computer programs and printers can interpret colors differently, the results can vary. In this book, the color correction and printing has already been done for you and there are some nice tidbits about the shuttle program presented in these pages at the same time. Plus it is provided at a very affordable price.
Short of somehow being able to get into an Orbiter Processing Facility to shoot pictures of a space shuttle orbiter (which is still almost impossible to do, even for a member of the press) or fly on one (even more difficult to do), this book provides the next best thing. It is the perfect companion to Jenkins' previous hardcover on the subject and makes an excellent photo resource for the space shuttle program.

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After Columbia disintegrated during entry on 1 February 2003, NASA grounded the entire Space Shuttle fleet until it could ascertain what had gone wrong and fix the problem. Whenever an aerospace program is grounded for a prolonged period, the first flight after the grounding is often called the Return-to-Flight. After 30 months of work, NASA launched the Space Shuttle Program's Return-to-Flight – called STS-114 – using Discovery. This flight was the most-photographed Space Shuttle flight ever, with numerous cameras on the ground, ships, and aircraft tracking the vehicle during ascent, and the crew of the International Space Station taking a series of detailed photographs as the Orbiter approached the ISS. In addition, the crew of the Discovery used cameras in the cockpit and on a long robotic arm to examine almost every inch of the Orbiter. The result was some stunning photography that shows the Space Shuttle in ways that have never before been seen. It is presented here, in full color, as the program readies to fly the second Return to Flight launch – STS-121 – also using Discovery.

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