The Space Shuttle: An Experimental Flying Machine

This book explains how the achievements of the Space Shuttle, the world's first reusable manned spacecraft, were built on the foundation of countless technical challenges.

The book adopts a challenge-by-challenge approach, focusing on specific difficulties and how (if at all) they were fully overcome. Going beyond the technical issues, it relates the human stories of each incident and how changes were effected in order to make the shuttle an exceptionally safer - though still experimental - flying machine.

Ben Evans has been involved with the topic of space exploration, especially human space exploration, since childhood. He regularly wrote to NASA, corresponded with astronauts and attended lectures and events. Since 1992, Evans has written extensively for the magazines Spaceflight, Countdown, Astronomy Now, Astronomy, All About Space and BBC Sky at Night Magazine.

Evans is currently the senior writer for the website AmericaSpace.com, where he covers space history, launches and International Space Station news. He has written nine previous books for the Springer-Praxis imprint, including NASA's Voyager Missions (2003), Space Shuttle Columbia (2005), and Space Shuttle Challenger (2006). More recently, Evans wrote a six-volume History of Human Space Exploration, published between 2009 to 2014.