The Space Shuttle’s Last Launch - Issue 32: Space
▻http://nautil.us/issue/32/space/the-space-shuttles-last-launch
The infrastructure behind NASA’s shuttle program was unimaginably vast. At $1 billion each, the launches were so audacious that they seemed to risk collapsing under the weight of their own hubris. And yet, for 30 years the orbiters came and went, acting as a protective vessel, enabling a select group to contemplate the fury of the world in a stillness unobtainable by the rest of us. Then in early 2011, the space shuttle program came to an end. As a journalist, I felt compelled to document this era in space exploration while it was still around.No human could survive this violent event at such close proximity. That same year, NASA allowed me unprecedented access to the area around the launch pad. I set an average of 11 cameras, some as close in as 650 feet from the shuttle’s main (...)