THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 3, 1995 TAG: 9506300165
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: The Gateway
SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 42 lines
YOU CAN FLY TO the high frontier of space without a rocket.
With the launch of the space shuttle Atlantis last Tuesday, NASA has unveiled a site on the Internet for the current mission and future shuttle flights.
The space agency's new World Wide Web page features up-to-the-minute mission information, data on past shuttle excursions and images from space.
Web browsers will be able to follow Atlantis' orbital track as it flies, docked with the Russian Mir space station, at more than 17,000 miles per hour almost 250 miles above the Earth's surface. Net surfers can see the actual data stream as it flows between the shuttle and mission controllers in Houston at the Johnson Space Center.
Still pictures of the Mir station and video images from NASA Select Television will also be available for viewing or downloading.
The Atlantis flight marks two milestones in American space exploration: the 100th U.S. human mission in space and a first-ever physical hook-up with Mir. The mission is the first of seven planned shuttle-Mir linkages between 1995 and 1997, which will include rendezvous, dockings and crew transfers.
The joint American-Russian missions are intended to pave the way for assembly of an international space station. Construction is slated to begin in November 1997.
The 10-day mission should conclude on Saturday. Two Russian cosmonauts will be transferred to Mir. Two other Russian cosmonauts, and American astronaut Norman Thagard, on board Mir since mid-March, will hitch a return ride on Atlantis.
The Web site address is: http://shuttle.nasa.gov ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
by CNB