Space

DATE=4-11-2003

TYPE=Special English Feature

NUMBER=7-28629

TITLE=SPECIAL ENGLISH AMERICAN MOSAIC #917-Shuttle Names

BYLINE=Nancy Steinbach

TELEPHONE=619-2585

DATELINE=Washington

EDITOR=Shelley Gollust

CONTENT=

HOST:

Our VOA listener question this week comes from Nigeria. Semaku Fasinu asks us to explain how the American space shuttles got their names, and why the spacecraft is called a shuttle.

The dictionary says the word "shuttle" means travel again and again over an established path by a vehicle such as an airplane. Scientists were using the word to describe space transportation as early as nineteen-fifty-two. Wernher von Braun wrote about using a shuttle craft to move men and materials between a rocket ship and space station. Since then, American space scientists have used the term to describe movement of goods and people between Earth and outer space.

The American space agency NASA first used the word shuttle in nineteen-sixty-eight to describe a craft that would orbit the Earth and return astronauts home. President Richard Nixon announced the development of the space shuttle in nineteen-seventy-two. Each craft was to make one-hundred trips in space.

The first space shuttle was to have been called Constitution. But a national campaign among the fans of the "Star Trek" television show influenced the government to change the name to Enterprise. Enterprise was the name of the space ship in that television show.

NASA decided to officially choose the names of the shuttles that would be built later. Officials decided to name the shuttles after historic ships of explorers throughout history.

For example, the shuttle Columbia was named for one of the first Navy ships to sail completely around the world. The shuttle Discovery was named for two historic ships. One ship was led by Henry Hudson when he discovered Hudson Bay. The other was James Cook's ship which explored the Hawaiian Islands, southern Alaska and western Canada.

The Atlantis space shuttle was named for a scientific research ship operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts.

The Challenger was named for a British naval research ship that explored the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Following the destruction of the Challenger in nineteen-eighty-six, NASA held a contest for American school children to name the replacement shuttle. The name chosen was Endeavor, after the first ship commanded by James Cook.