Richard Hammond's Engineering Connections - Season 3 - Eps 5: Space Shuttle
Richard Hammond reveals the engineering connections in NASA's Space Shuttle - the world's first re-usable space craft. He goes backstage at Kennedy Space Centre, in Florida, to discover how an organ pump, tram tracks, a WWII anti-sonar device, a camera iris and a cannonball all helped create the most technologically advanced machine ever engineered by man. Conceived in the early 1970's as the successor to the Apollo Moon missions, the Shuttle is a delivery system, designed to transport payloads such as the Hubble Telescope, and most of the International Space Station, into orbit, and return for its next cargo. The delivery van is the Orbiter - what most people call the Shuttle - which is mated with a huge external fuel tank and rocket boosters which are all jettisoned. Surviving the huge destructive forces of traveling to space and returning in usable form called for ingenious engineering compromises.
About Richard Hammond's Engineering Connections
Title: Richard Hammond's Engineering Connections
First Air Date: 2008-09-08
Last Air Date: 2011-06-12
Status: Ended
Rating: 6/10 (from 3 votes)
Language: EN
Seasons: 3
Total Episodes: 16
Network: National Geographic Channel BBC Two
Genres: Documentary
Production Companies: Unknown
Synopsis
Richard Hammond looks at the connections behind the greatest feats of engineering.
Cast
Richard Hammond
Himself - Presenter
