Customer Reviews

Return-To-Flight Space Shuttle Discovery (Photo Scrapbook)

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After Columbia's breakup in 2003, NASA began a major rework of the shuttle program resulting in the launch of STS-114, the first of two space shuttle "Return to Flight" missions, in July of 2005. The mission was ultimately a success and it became probably the most photographed mission of the entire space shuttle program. The main reason for the photography is NASA wanted to obtain clear imagery of the shuttle both during ascent and on orbit to see if the modifications made to the external tank to prevent foam loss had worked and to see if any damage had been sustained by the orbiter. After the mission, the shuttle fleet remained grounded due to foam loss from a PAL ramp on STS-114s external tank, but subsequent modifications lead to successful launch of Discovery on STS-121 on July 4th, 2006.

Practically all of the official imagery taken of STS-114 is available online at the NASA websites. But, Dennis Jenkins and Jorge R. Frank have compiled as many pictures as they could find into this 108 page book and provided them in a high quality format. Dennis Jenkins is no stranger to the shuttle program as his "Space Shuttle, the First 100 Missions" hardcover is an excellent resource and history text about the shuttle program.

In addition to the photographs on display, Dennis and Jorge also provide additional tidbits and facts about the shuttle program. In here you see pictures of Atlantis and Discovery during orbital processing, STS-114s original patch design (prior to STS-107s breakup), pictures of the ET, SRB and station hardware that flew on this flight and diagrams of the modifications made to the External Tank. The on orbit pictures of Discovery are the real gems in this book though as you get to see excellent imagery of what a shuttle looks like in orbit. The shuttle's thermal protection system truely is a work of art to look at in orbit. Pictures of the ISS during Discovery's inspection fly around are also provided in these pages.

Now it is possible to download all these pictures and print them out from the NASA websites. But in the process, you would be using A LOT of paper, burning up several ink cartridges in the process and devoting many hours to doing this. Plus, since many computer programs and printers can interpret colors differently, the results can vary. In this book, the color correction and printing has already been done for you and there are some nice tidbits about the shuttle program presented in these pages at the same time. Plus it is provided at a very affordable price.

Short of somehow being able to get into an Orbiter Processing Facility to shoot pictures of a space shuttle orbiter (which is still almost impossible to do, even for a member of the press) or fly on one (even more difficult to do), this book provides the next best thing. It is the perfect companion to Jenkins' previous hardcover on the subject and makes an excellent photo resource for the space shuttle program.

This book captures all the fascinating details of Discovery's long journey to the launch pad, launch and time at the Space Station. Dennis Jenkins and Jorge Frank have done a wonderful job of putting these amazing pictures together and creating a great book about Return to Flight. I would highly recommend this book to any space shuttle enthusiast of any age.

The format presented by the authors of this book is really unique. STS 114 was one of the most photo- documented spaceflights of all time. The book presents every aspect of the flight in some of the best photographs taken whether on the ground, or taken in space by the astronauts themslves. NASA is the repository for some of the best pictures of manned spaceflight. The authors have done a magnificent job of compiling the many thousands of pictures taken of this mission and presenting them in a truly awe inspiring way. The photos in the book taken of Discovery while engaged in the "pitch manuever" were as breath taking as when the manuever was actually performed.
All space enthusiast will relish the idea of being able to acess in book form the photographs taken during this mission. My congratulations to the authors for doing what should have been done a long time ago. The adventure is for "all mankind". I can't think of a better way to enjoy the ride other than by actually doing it! The authors should seriously think about follow on volumns which document the remaining shuttle spaceflights.

Michael H. Cooper

This is a great book for anybody who is interested in manned spaceflight. It is a very thorough photo documentation of STS-114, the first flight of the Space Shuttle after the Columbia disaster. All aspects of the flight are covered, from training, launch, rendezvous with the International Space Station, on-orbit activities, EVAs, through re-entry and landing, plus a preview of the next Shuttle flight. The pictures are all in full color and are reproduced very clearly. I highly recommend this book!

This book has some amazing photos. The level of detail that can be seen in the photos almost rivals the kind of detail that you get by wathcing an IMAX movie.

The collaborative work of Dennis R. Jenkins (a thirty year veteran engineer and manager on the Space Shuttle Program and other space-related programs and currently the Verville Fellow at the Smithsonian Institutions' national Air and Space Museum) and Jorge R. Frank (an aerospace engineer with eighteen years' experience on the Space Shuttle Program), "Return-To-Flight: Space Shuttle Discovery Photo Scrapbook" is the illustrated story of how NASA grounded the entire Space Shuttle fleet after the Columbia disaster on February 1, 2003, in order to find out what had gone wrong and fix it. After thirty months of hard work, NASA launched the Space Shuttle Program's Return-to-Flight (STS-114) using the space craft Discovery. This was the most photographed flight in Space Shuttle history (including images taken from inside the cockpit and from a camera mounted on a long, robotic arm used to examine almost every inch of the Orbiter) and the foundation for this informed and informative history of this cutting edge aviation program. Superbly illustrated with 350 full color mission photos and an informative text, "Return-To-Flight is a seminal work and a core addition to personal, academic, and community library Aviation & Space Exploration History collections.

This book is definitely worth buying if you are interested in the space shuttle. The photography is amazing, and lets you in on all kinds of fascinating behind the scenes details of shuttle operations. It contains informative captions and lot's of stunning photography. I bought this while at Kennedy space center and it is my favorite souvenir.