30 years of space shuttle missions: A salute in images
Astronaut Stephen K. Robinson inspects the shuttle Discovery's thermal protection system and removes gap fillers from its heat shield during a final spacewalk in preparation for the return to Earth in August 2005.NASA
By Matt Nighswander
The shuttle era is over, but graphic artist Luke Wesley Price is determined to keep the memory from fading. A new photography book, written and designed by Price, collects some of "the most breathtaking and awe-inspiring NASA images from the space shuttle’s 30-year service history."
"Space Shuttle: A Photographic Journey, 1981-2011" pays tribute to the five spaceworthy orbiters built by NASA: Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour. (The Enterprise, currently on display in New York, was a prototype and built only to perform test flights in the atmosphere.)
The book was a four-year labor of love for Price, who became fascinated by the shuttle program after watching a live broadcast of the Challenger explosion as a child in 1986. He intends the book as a salute to the shuttle, which he calls"arguably the most technologically advanced vehicle ever made."