If you remember the movie Apollo 13, public appreciation for the moonshots was down and no one seemed to care about the missions anymore because they were becoming so commonplace — until something went terribly wrong. Well, it’s the same thing for the space shuttle program. We are just after a “something went terribly wrong” so it’s getting more media attention than usual right now but soon it will fade into the back pages should nothing go wrong in the future.

I saw a special a while back that pointed out something that most people don’t realize and gave me a greater appreciation for the shuttle program. I remember watching the first shuttle (Columbia) launch while I was in grade school and the teacher explained how it launches like a rocket but it returns to earth like an airplane, to be used again in another mission. It was a good description but not quite accurate.

The shuttle is more like a glider — not a traditional airplane. They may seem similar in definition at first but think about what it means to land a glider versus a plane. The shuttle has to enter the earth’s atmosphere at just the right place and time with just the right amount of projection, angle, and speed to get one attempt, and only one attempt, to properly land on an airstrip somewhere in the country.

There are are no second chances when you come barrelling in from space at sound barrier breaking speeds and have to place the wheels of the craft at the end of a runway (a hundred feet of margin or so) at a speed that is not so fast that it breaks the landing gear, or so slow that you stall before you hit the mark. It is quite a miracle of physics, mathematics and skill.