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How to Land the Space Shuttle... from Space

Name: How to Land the Space Shuttle... from Space
Description: Bret Copeland, in an astronaut costume, gives an energetic talk on how the Space Shuttle landed from orbit, including reentry and the unpowered glide. It includes real-time landing footage with HUD and audio.

Bret Talks

Open on YouTube First HN thread

2 HN users recommended this talk in 2 different months between 2017 and 2023.

2007–2026

1 strong recommendation 1 recommendation 2 citations HackerTube score 2.5

HN recommends it as an entertaining, technical illustration of how hard the Shuttle's one-shot dead-stick landing was.

Bret Copeland, in an astronaut costume, gives an energetic talk on how the Space Shuttle landed from orbit, including reentry and the unpowered glide. It includes real-time landing footage with HUD and audio.

Pull quote: “I highly, highly recommend this entertaining and technical presentation by Bret Copeland” (HN, 2017)

Also tagged: space shuttle landing, space shuttle, reentry, aviation, orbital mechanics, nasa

What Hacker News said

4 labeled comments from the HN archive; up to 20 are kept per video, favoring different commenters. Each one links back to the original thread.

Strongly recommends mholt March 2017 under The Space-Glider (2000)

Entertaining technical talk on landing the Shuttle from orbit.

On a related note, I highly, highly recommend this entertaining and technical presentation by Bret Copeland, How to Land the Space Shuttle... From Space: [this video]

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Recommends grecy February 2023 under A Cold War mystery: Why did Jimmy Carter save the space shuttle?

Real-time Shuttle landing with HUD and audio from 13:40.

Here's a cool video of landing the shuttle in real time. The whole landing proceeds unnervingly fast! The actual landing HUD and audio starts at 13:40 [this video]

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Citations, criticism and jokes

Cites it ben_bai February 2017 under SpaceX Dragon Rendezvous and Docking Waved Off for Today

Illustrates how difficult the Shuttle's unpowered landing was.

> I don't think the Shuttle landing was particularly problematic. They had a lot of control over the glideslope and lots and lots of runway to work with. I'm sure it's a lot more challenging than the sailplanes I fly, but I wouldn't have any major safety concerns flying on the Shuttle during landing. Well the shuttle is a big heavy glider with little wings. One try, and down from 30,000 feet to ground in 3 minutes. Not problematic, but very special. [this video]

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Cites it heffay January 2022 under James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away

Video on the complexities of landing the Shuttle.

Reminds me of a video I came across last year about about landing the space shuttle and the complexities of it all. [this video]

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