Orbiter

Imagine sitting in the commander’s seat of NASA’s shuttle Orbiter... With your back to the Earth and your face to the heavens you prepare yourself for the final seconds before lift-off. Moments from now you will experience the effects of 3 g’s (3 times the force of gravity on earth) as the shuttle system lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center. For now your thoughts turn to final system checks and the voice of Mission Control. At T-00:03 seconds the first of three main engines ignites, at T-00:02 the shuttle’s Solid Rocket Boosters ignite and you are on your way. Five on-board computers process thousands of bits of data each second as you ar…