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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. –– In the Space Station Processing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a worker prepares to pack a component of the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill, or COLBERT, for launch to the International Space Station on the space shuttle Discovery STS-128 mission. The treadmill is named after comedian Stephen Colbert, the host of Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report.” Colbert urged his viewers to suggest the name “Colbert” as the name for the station’s Node 3 module. Although his name did receive the most entries in an Internet polling contest, NASA chose the name “Tranquility” to honor the accomplishments of the Apollo 11 mission. COLBERT will be installed in Tranquility after the node arrives at the station next year. Launch of STS-128 is targeted for Aug. 6, 2009. Photo credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller KSC-2009-2825
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. –– In the Space Station Processing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a worker prepares to pack a component of the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill, or COLBERT, for launch to the International Space Station on the space shuttle Discovery STS-128 mission. The treadmill is named after comedian Stephen Colbert, the host of Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report.” Colbert urged his viewers to suggest the name “Colbert” as the name for the station’s Node 3 module. Although his name did receive the most entries in an Internet polling contest, NASA chose the name “Tranquility” to honor the accomplishments of the Apollo 11 mission. COLBERT will be installed in Tranquility after the node arrives at the station next year. Launch of STS-128 is targeted for Aug. 6, 2009. Photo credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller
The Space Shuttle program was the United States government's manned launch vehicle program from 1981 to 2011, administered by NASA and officially beginning in 1972. The Space Shuttle system—composed of an orbiter launched with two reusable solid rocket boosters and a disposable external fuel tank— carried up to eight astronauts and up to 50,000 lb (23,000 kg) of payload into low Earth orbit (LEO). When its mission was complete, the orbiter would re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and lands as a glider. Although the concept had been explored since the late 1960s, the program formally commenced in 1972 and was the focus of NASA's manned operations after the final Apollo and Skylab flights in the mid-1970s. It started with the launch of the first shuttle Columbia on April 12, 1981, on STS-1. and finished with its last mission, STS-135 flown by Atlantis, in July 2011.
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