ROOM: The Space magazine is one of the major magazines on space exploration, technology and industry. At ROOM, we share a common dream – promotion of peaceful space exploration for the benefit of humankind, all while bringing you detailed articles on an array of popular topics. Our authors include academics and industry leaders from all over the world, which lets us bring you timely and comprehensive information about space shuttle years.
April 2020
Space Florida - gateway to an interstellar future
...former Orbital Processing Facilities (OPF) of NASA that were used to turnaround and process the Space Shuttle after landing for subsequent re-flight to space. Space Florida secured a long-term property agreement for the first of these, OPF 1, and... 39A back to life, launching Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. Less than four years after the end of Shuttle, SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport and then landed the...
February 2019
The Space Elevator – an alternative path to space?
.... The rocket equation for chemical rockets results in only a small payload fraction. The space shuttle carried only one train-wagon-equivalent payload to LEO, around 27.5 metric tons (mt), or...“The Heliopause Electrostatic Rapid Transit System (HERTS), First Year Report,” NASA-MSFC, Advanced Concepts Office, Huntsville, 2016. 17 B. Shelef, “The Space Elevator Feasibility Condition,” in Space Elevator Conference, Seattle, 2009. 18 J. Knapman, ...
May 2020
Space for Art – The magnificent beauty of spaceflight
... I am so thankful to all of the photographers who are chronicling the magnificent beauty of spaceflight. To me, this picture of the Space Shuttle Discovery’s roll to the launch pad for her final flight is the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. With...of our partner countries have been travelling to and from the ISS together for the past 20 years – over half that time in parallel with Space Shuttle flights, and now our sole means of transport since the...
June 2022
Military space – how worried should we be?
...The propelling force for the first satellite was the international scientific project, the International Geophysical Year, peaceful purposes being the published roles of the first Sputnik, Explorer and Vanguard satellites,...(Warner Brothers, 1983) unmistakeably reflected the US government and media portrayal of early space as ‘peaceful purposes’. The Space Shuttle had its own dedicated west coast military base, Vandenberg Air Force Base. Full ...
September 2016
Transforming US space policy
... between the United States and the Soviet Union, the Apollo programme, Space Shuttle launches, the International Space Station; all high profile human exploration programmes carried out by world governments. Many do not... if nothing new is launched. Catastrophic collisions such as Iridium 33-Cosmos 2251 will occur every five to nine years. Each such collision will create thousands of pieces of debris and result in more collisions. Instead of no new...
February 2021
Space archaeology - preserving our orbital heritage
...paint flake travelling in excess of 17,500 miles per hour is significant, as shown by craters observed in Space Shuttle windows. Whilst larger assets such as the ISS have Whipple shielding to provide a measure of protection from ...the archaeologists of the future looking back many hundreds (if not thousands) of years, we may be able to appreciate how incredible the space-based activities of humans in the late 20th and early 21st centuries would ...
February 2019
Building a space museum from scratch
... with the public and the thousands of school children who came to the station’s visitor centre each year on organised excursions. Moon-rock sample on display. I asked the station Director if I could do ... pieces of heatshield, materials from a Mercury spacecraft, and several types of thermal protection tiles used in the Space Shuttle programme. For a space-nut like me, it was heaven. The big crate had my heart pounding. It stood nearly as tall...
July 2020
Lego’s replica space programme
...48 x 30 x 24 cm when complete. It is mounted on a Lego-built stand with a Space Shuttle, capsule and several ‘cargo spacecraft’ that can be docked to the station. Like the real thing,...space travel, the Space Shuttle, as it drifts further into the mists of history and rose-tinted recollection. About the author Mark Williamson is an independent Space Technology Consultant and writer, and a Commissioning Editor for ROOM Space Journal. He has 40 years...
August 2021
Born to juggle in space
...the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio and in Florida, within view of Space Shuttles leaving the planet, I developed an early appreciation for space exploration. In addition to my love of the cosmos, and perhaps related to my.... Whether my vestibular system was ready or not I’d be up practicing again 10 or 15 minutes later. After a year of practising with hundreds of hours in the harness, I can now juggle for more than 30 minutes straight, at ...
