Space Shuttle Nose Dive

NIKON D80

ƒ/16

270 mm

1/250

400

STS-131 coming in for a landing at Cape Canaveral.

My colleague Josh was visiting the SpaceX Falcon9 and looked up to see this dive bomb out of the sky, with two successive sonic booms.

They actually come in at this angle (the image is not rotated).

I learned this first hand from STS-6 pilot Bo Bobko when I flew the Space Shuttle Simulator at NASA. Bo helped develop the glide slope protocols for the Shuttle. It has to come in at a steep angle to have enough air speed not to stall before landing. So you have to aim at the ground and then pull the nose up at the right time to land it. And since there is no propulsion, you get one chance at the runway…

(More VMS photos, STS-131 Launch, my favorite shot from 1am, and all Shuttle photos)

10 responses to “Space Shuttle Nose Dive”

kirainet

Apr 22, 2010 at 2:36 am

I would prefer a computer program to decide for me. Did you crash using the simulator? 😉

Reply
jurvetson

Apr 22, 2010 at 2:41 am

I crashed the first couple times, but then I got the hang of it… and tried some tricks (short video)

Rich debates ensued between the pilots and designers on the topic of autopilot landings.

Reply
ideastoday

Apr 22, 2010 at 3:17 am

"Rich debates ensued…"

I bet. That goes back to the "man in the can" jokes from Mercury. The Original 7 weren’t much interested in being passengers. They wanted to actually fly the thing.

That simulator video is awesome. Can’t believe you recovered from that approach!

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limesphotography

Apr 22, 2010 at 11:52 am

Wow nice shot, and interesting blurb!

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Jonathan Ruff

Apr 22, 2010 at 2:25 pm

20 years from now we’re going to be amazed that people flew space planes in this manner (and in truth, SpaceShipOne’s flutter approach has already painted that picture).

So let me get this straight. You measured computing power with hertz? What’s a gigabyte? Your computers were so big you had to carry them in backpacks? What’s a computer? You ran cars on engines that burned gasoline? You transplanted organs instead of using regenerative medicine; and burned people with chemotherapy instead of shutting down the telomerase and killing off the immortal cancer stem cells? Children were born with diseases? And your spaceship returned as a falling brick with one shot at pulling up at the last second on landing before plowing into the ground at the speed of sound?

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sbove

Apr 22, 2010 at 6:25 pm

That’s gotta be a white knuckle experience unless you are the pilot, in which case its an absolute no messing around, out of body concentration experience.

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Meer

Apr 24, 2010 at 2:06 pm

Wasn’t looking for this photo, was just browsing your stream, but I saw this shuttle go up, so appreciated the serendipity of running across it coming down. What a crazy thing it is to be on the newbie side of space exploration.

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TrombaMarina

Apr 27, 2010 at 3:05 pm

I’ve heard it compared to flying a brick. Not for the faint of heart!

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PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE

May 30, 2010 at 6:41 pm

Cool shot !!! Was a great mission to follow !

Have you seen this ?

Gizmodo- Amateur Astronomers Continue to Amaze

ISS crossing paths with Jupiter—during the daytime!

..amateur astronomers. Last Sunday, one of their ilk spied the super-secret X37-B space shuttle making the rounds

Reply
Fatdeeman

May 31, 2010 at 9:08 pm

Excellent shuttle photo!

And as for that X37B shot, astonishing what some of these "amateurs" can achieve, it’s very humbling!

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Space Shuttle Nose Dive

10 responses to “Space Shuttle Nose Dive”

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