Astronauts answer only please. Have you ever travelled on a Space Shuttle? What was the experience like?

Question

Please only answer if you are or were a former astronaut

Answer 1

Would you settle for an answer from a Space Cowboy? Bet you weren't ready for that.

It is the best you are going to find here.

Answer 2

Are you ready for this???

Sorry Sandras, I've never flown the Space Shuttle but I have flown several other spacecrafts.

Honestly, I wouldn't go up in that antiquated bucket of bolts for all the quatlews of Signus 5.

Answer 3

<eagerly awaits to see how many astronauts use YA>

o.O

Answer 4

I used to be an astronaut in my former life, I promise.

Now, from what I can remember, you lie in your seat for a few hours before the actual lift off. Everything is controlled by computers, so you don't have to worry about anything, just hand on for one h**l of a ride.

At T -6 seconds, they fire the three main engines up. It shakes the whole stack and makes it tilt slightly. Just as the stack returns to its original position, the Solid Rocket Boosters fire up, a T -0 second. And boy, are those things powerful! The whole launch stack shakes and groans from the thrust those babies create. Once they're fired up, you can't shut them down. Luckily for us, the explosive bolts that were holding us in place are released, and it's up and away we go!

Just after we leave the launch pad, the shuttle performs a roll to the heads down, wings level position, and again this is all controlled by the computers. We speed up towards the sky in a progressively flattening arc, so we end up being upside-down in the shuttle, but it doesn't matter much because the g's we're experiencing are keeping us firmly in our seats. Before the shuttle experiences maximum resistance from air, the shuttle's main engines are throttled down to avoid unnecessary stress on the craft. As we cross the sound barrier, you can see the condensation cloud forming around the shuttle. much like with fighter jets going supersonic. After that, it's "go at throttle-up" for us, which means that the three main engines throttle back up to their full thrust. There's still vibration, noise and ever-increasing g's.

After about 2 minutes of flight, the Solid Rocket Boosters blast off and fall into the ocean. We see a bright flash as they are blasted off, and then the flight goes smooth and quiet.

As we get closer to our destined orbit, the g's become stronger due to the fuel tank getting lighter. So the main engines throttle down again to keep it at 3g. The acceleration is so strong that a clipboard that's being held by velcro can sometimes come off due to the g force.

As we get to the exact point of insertion into our orbit, the main engines are cut off, and that's the moment when we become weightless! We enter a free fall around the earth. Everything that's not secured tightly starts to float. After the main engines are cut off, we no longer need the huge fuel tank, so it's detached and allowed to fall back into the ocean.

Welcome to space, guys!

Answer 5

As about only 200 people have ever been in space, and most of them haven't been on the shuttle it's unlikely your get an answer.