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Definition: Shuttle |
ShuttleNoun1. Badminton equipment consisting of a ball of cork or rubber with a crown of feathers. 2. Public transport that consists of a bus or train or airplane that plies back and forth between two points. 3. Bobbin that passes the weft thread between the warp threads. Verb1. Travel back and forth between two points. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "shuttle" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1321. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
General | Conveyance which travels back and forth over a particular route, especially a short route or one connecting two other transport systems. Source: European Union. (references) |
Industry | A)in a Schiffli embroidery machine:a boat-shaped yarn package holder travelling in a slide a such a manner that it passes through the loop formed in the needle thread thus forming the back thread of the lock stitch. The shuttle-yarn package is a coreless cop and tension is applied by means of a spring over the thread hole; b)in a lace furnishing machine:a term used in Scotland to denote the carriage. Source: European Union. (references) |
| An apparatus that transports the bobbinwound weft thread from one selvedge to the other. Usually made of wood, it contains a spool which is the yarn reserve. When the spool is finished it is replaced. Source: European Union. (references) | |
Mining | A back-and-forth motion of a machine that continues to face in onedirection. (references) |
Nuclear Energy & Physics | A small container propelled pneumatically or hydraulically through a tube leading from the laboratory to a location in a nuclear reactor or other device where irradiation of a sample can take place. Source: European Union. (references) |
Transportation | A public conveyance which travels back and forth over a particular route, especially a short route or one connecting two other transport systems. Source: European Union. (references) |
| The orbiter, solid rocket boosters, and external tank of the STS:a reusable manned spacecraft whose mission is either to resupply a space station with additional crewmen, supplies and experiments or to carry men, supplies and experiments into orbit, support them for periods ranging from a few days to one month, and return them to earth. Source: European Union. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
A shuttle, in general, is something which travels back and forth between places in a regular manner.
- the space shuttle,
- a public transport system, usually one which travels between two stations, such as bus or train
- a loom component, for which see below.
A shuttle in weaving is a device used with a loom that is thrown back and forth between the threads of the warp in order to weave in the woof. Shuttles are often made of flowering dogwood wood because it is so hard, resists splintering, and finishes very smooth.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Shuttle."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The Soviet reusable spacecraft program Buran (meaning 'snowstorm' or 'blizzard' in Russian) was launched in 1976 as a response to the United States Space Shuttle program. Soviet politicians were convinced that the Space Shuttle could be used for military purposes, hence posing a potential threat to the balance of power during the Cold War. The project was the largest and the most expensive in the history of Soviet space exploration.
History
The construction of the shuttles began in 1980 and by 1984 the first full-scale Buran was rolled out. The first suborbital test flight of a scale-model, however, took place as early as July 1983. As the project lasted, five additional scale-model flights were performed. With the first full-scale Buran, 24 test flights were performed after which the shuttle was 'worn out'.
The first and only orbital launch of the (unmanned) shuttle Buran was at 3:00 GMT on November 15, 1988. It was lifted into orbit by the specially designed Energiya booster rocket. The life support system was not tested yet and no software was installed on the CRT displays. The shuttle orbited the Earth twice before returning.
Part of the launch was televised, but the actual lift-off was not shown. This led to some speculation that the mission may have been faked, and that the subsequent landing may not have been from orbit but from a shuttle-carrying aircraft.
After the first flight the project was suspended due to lack of funds and the political situation in the Soviet Union. The two subsequent orbiters, which were due in 1990 (codename Ptichka - little bird) and 1992 respectively were never completed. The project was officially shut down in 1993.
The completed shuttles called 1.01 and 1.02 and the remains of the project are now property of Kazakstan.
Shuttle Buran on a Energiya booster rocketSee also: manned space missions, unmanned space missions, space exploration
External links
- Russian Aviation page
- buran.ru -- in Russian
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Shuttle Buran."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Space Shuttle Columbia during takeoff, 1981 (NASA)NASA's Space Shuttle program is an ongoing endeavor, started in the early 1970s, that had created the world's first reusable spacecraft, and the first spacecraft capable of carrying large satellites both to and from low Earth orbit. Each shuttle is designed for a projected lifespan of 100 launches. One of the main purposes of the program was to construct and service a space station. With the International Space Station this purpose is now a reality.
Introduction
The Space Shuttle consists of four main components:
Initial plans for the so-called Space Transportation System included space tugs and extra fuel tanks for the orbital manuvering systems among many other concepts. None of them made it to actual hardware.
- the reuseable orbiter itself
- a large expendable external fuel tank (ET) containing liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen (in inner tanks at the forward and aft ends, respectively) for the three main engines of the orbiter; it is discarded 8.5 minutes after launch at an altitude of 109 kilometers and breaks up in the atmosphere upon reentry; the pieces fall in the ocean and are not recovered)
- a pair of reusable solid-fuel rocket boosters (SRB); the propellant consists mainly of ammonium perchlorate (oxidizer, 70 % by weight), aluminum (fuel, 16 %); they are separated two minutes after launch at a height of 66 km and are recovered after landing in the ocean, their fall slowed by parachutes.
Statistics
- Space Shuttle stack height: 56.14 m (184.2 feet) tall
- Orbiter alone: 37.23 m (122.17 feet) long
- Wingspan: 23.79 m (78.06 feet)
- Weight at liftoff: 2,041,166 kg (4.5 million pounds)
- Weight at end of mission: 104,326 kg (230,000 pounds)
- Maximum cargo to orbit: 28,803 kg (63,500 pounds)
- Orbit: 185 to 643 km (115 to 400 statute miles)
- Velocity: 27,875 km/h (17,321 mi/h)
Space Shuttle Atlantis transported by a Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), 1998 (NASA)
Shuttles
- test vehicle only suitable for glide/landing tests:
- Enterprise
- lost in accidents (see below):
- Challenger
- Columbia
- in use:
- Atlantis
- Discovery
- Endeavour
The Shuttle decision
NASA had conducted a series of paper-projects throughout the 1960s on the topic of reusable spacecraft to replace their expedient "one-off" systems like Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. Meanwhile the Air Force had a continuing interest in smaller systems with more rapid turn-around times, and were involved in their own spaceplane project called Dynasoar. In several instances groups from both worked together to investigate the state of the art.
With the major Apollo development effort winding down in the second half of the 1960s, NASA started looking to the future of the space program. They envisioned an ambitious program consisting of a large space station being launched on huge boosters, served by a reusable logistics "space shuttle", both providing services for a permanantly manned Lunar colony and eventual manned missions to Mars.
However reality was to interject and NASA found themselves with a rapidly plunging budget. Rather than stepping back and looking at their future as a whole given their new financial situation, they attempted to save as many of the individual projects as possible. The mission to Mars was quickly eliminated, but the Space Station and Shuttle continued on. Eventually only one of them could be saved, so it stood to reason that a low-cost Shuttle system would be the better bet, because without it a station would never be affordable.
A number of designs were proposed, but many of them were complex and varied widely in their systems. An attempt to re-simplify was made in the form of the "DC-3" by one of the few people left in NASA with the political clout to pull it off, Maxime Faget, who had designed the Mercury capsule, among others. The DC-3 was a small craft with a 20,000lbs (or less) payload, a four-man crew, and limited manuverability. At a minimum, the DC-3 provided a baseline "workable" (but not terribly advanced) system by which other systems could be compared for price/performance tradeoffs.
The final defining moment was when NASA, in desperation to see their only remaining project saved, went to the Air Force for its blessing. NASA asked that the AF place all of their future launches on the shuttle instead of their current expendable launchers (like the Titan II), in return for which they would no longer have to continue spending money upgrading those designs -- the shuttle would provide more than enough capability.
The Air Force relucantly agreed, but only after demanding a large increase in capability to allow for launching their projected spy satellites (mirrors are heavy). These were quite large, weighing an estimated 40,000 lbs, and needed to be put into polar orbit, which requires more capacity to get to than the more usual LEO. And since the AF also wanted to be able to abort after a single orbit (as did NASA), and land at the launch site (unlike NASA), the spacecraft would also require the ability to manuver to either side of its orbital track to adjust for the launching point rotating away from it while in polar orbit - in a 90 minute orbit Vandenberg would move over 1,000 miles, whereas in a "normal" equatorial orbit NASA needed the range would be less than 400. This large 'cross-range' capability meant the craft had to have a greater lift to drag ratio than originally planned. This required the addition of bigger, heavier wings.
The result was that the simple DC-3 was clearly out of the picture because it had neither the cargo capacity nor the cross-range the Air Force demanded. In fact all existing designs were far too small, as a 40,000 lbs delivery to polar orbit is similar to a 65,000 lbs delivery to a "normal" 28 degree equatorial orbit. In fact any design using simple straight or fold-out wings was not going to meet the cross range requirements, so any future design would require a more complex, heavier delta wing.
Worse, any increase in the weight of the upper portion of a lauch vehicle, which had just occurred, requires an even bigger increase in the capability of the lower stage used to launch it. Suddenly the two-stage system grew in size to something larger than the Saturn V, and the complexity and costs to develop it skyrocketed.
While all of this was going on, others were suggesting a completely different approach to the future. They stated that NASA was better off using the existing Saturn to launch their space station, supplied and manned using modified Gemini capsules on top of the Air Force's newer Titan II-M. The cost of development for this looked to be considerably less than the shuttle alone, and would have a large space station in orbit earlier.
The answer within those groups dedicated to the shuttle was to show that as long as you have enough launches, the development cost of the system would be overwhelmed by the cost of the rockets you would otherwise throw away. One factor that needs to be considered is inflation though, and in the 1970s this was high enough that the payback from the development had to happen very quickly or that money would never pay for itself. In other words you needed a very high launch rate to make the system work.
But there was no way that a space station or Air Force payloads could demand such rates (roughly 1 to 2 per week), so they went further and suggested that all future launches would take place on the shuttle, once built. In order to do this the cost of launching the shuttle would have to be lower than any other system with the exception of the very small, which they ignored for practical reasons, and very large, which were rare and terribly expensive anyway.
With a baseline project now gelling, NASA started to work though the process of obtaining stable funding for the five years the project would take to develop. Here too they found themselves increasingly backed into a corner.
With the budgets being pressed by inflation at home and the Vietnam war abroad, the government generally couldn't care less about anything as long-term as space exploration and were therefore looking to make further deep cuts to NASAs budget. But with a single long term project on the books, there wasn't much they could do in terms of cutting whole projects -- the shuttle was all that was left, cut that and there would be no US manned space program by the 1980s.
Instead they looked to reduce the year-to-year costs of development to a stable figure. That is, they wished to see the development budgets spread out over several more years. This is somewhat difficult to do--you can't build half a rocket. The result was another intense series of redesigns in which the re-usable booster was eventually abandoned as impossible to pay for. Instead a series of simpler rockets would launch the system, and then drop away for recovery. Another change was that the fuel for the shuttle itself was placed in an external tank instead of internal tanks from the previous designs. This allowed a larger payload bay in an otherwise much smaller craft, although it also meant throwing away the tankage after each launch.
The last remaining debate was over the nature of the boosters. NASA had been looking at no less than four solutions to this problem, one a development of the existing Saturn lower stage, another using "dumb" pressure-fed liquid fuel engines of a new design, and finally either a large single solid rocket, or two (or more) smaller ones. The decision was eventually made on the smaller solids due to their lower development costs (a decision that had been echoed throughout the whole Shuttle program). While the liquid fueled systems provided better performace and enhanced safety, delivery capability to orbit is much more a function of the upper-stage performance and weight than the lower. The money was simply better spent elsewhere.
Shuttle development
The shuttle program was launched on January 5, 1972, when President Richard M. Nixon announced that NASA would proceed with the development of a reusable low cost space shuttle system.
The project was already to take longer than originally anticipated due to the year-to-year funding caps. Nevertheless work started quickly and several test articles were available within a few years.
Most notable among these was the first complete Orbiter, originally to be known as Constitution. However a massive write-in campaign on the part of fans of the TV show Star Trek convinced the White House to change the name to Enterprise. Enterprise was rolled out on September 17, 1976 and later conducted a very successful series of landing tests which was the first real validation of the gliding abilities of the design.
The first fully functional shuttle orbiter was the Columbia, which was delivered to Kennedy Space Center on March 25, 1979 and was first launched on April 12, 1981 with a crew of two. Challenger was delivered to KSC in July 1982, Discovery was delivered in November 1983, and Atlantis was delivered in April 1985. Challenger was destroyed in an explosion during launch in January 1986 with the loss of all seven astronauts on board, and Endeavour was built as a replacement (using spare parts originally built for the other orbiters) and delivered in May 1991. Columbia was lost, with all seven crew, in a re-entry mishap on February 1, 2003.
The Shuttle in retrospect
Whilst the shuttle has been a reasonably successful launch vehicle, it had been unable to meet its goals of radically reducing flight launch costs, as each flight costs on the order of $500 million rather than initial projections of $10 to $20 million.
Although the design is radically different than the original concept, the project was still supposed to meet the upgraded AF goals as well as be much cheaper to fly in general. What went wrong?
One issue appears to be inflation. During the 1970s the US suffered from the worst inflation in modern history, driving up costs about 200% by 1980. In contrast, the rate between 1990 and 2000 was only 34% in total. This has the effect of magnifying the development costs of the shuttle tremendously.
However this doesn't explain the high costs of the continued operations of the shuttle. Even accounting for inflation the launch costs on the original estimates should be about $100 million today. To explain this you have to look at the operational details of maintaining and servicing the shuttle fleet, which have turned out to be tremendously more expensive than anticipated.
When originally conceived the shuttle was to operate similar to an airliner. After landing the Orbiter would be checked out and start "mating" to the rest of the system (the ET and SRBs) and be ready for launch in as little as two weeks. Instead this turnaround process in fact takes months. This is due, in turn, to the continued "upgrading" of the inspection process as a result of hardware decisions made to reduce short-term development costs which resulted in higher maintenance requirements which where exacerbated by the fallout from the loss of Challenger. Even simple tasks now require unbelievable amounts of paperwork. This paperwork results from the fact that, unlike current expendable launch vehicles, the Space Shuttle is manned and has no escape systems to speak of and therefore any accident which would result in the loss of booster would also result in the loss of the crew which is, of course, unacceptable. Because loss of crew is unacceptable, the primary focus of the shuttle program is to return the crew to earth safely, which can conflict with other goals, namely to launch satellites cheaply. Furthermore, because there are cases where there are no abort modes, no potential way to prevent failure from becoming critical, many pieces of hardware simply must function perfectly and so must be carefully inspected before each flight.
The result is a massively inflated manpower bill. There are 25,000 workers in shuttle operations (perhaps an older number), so simply multiply any figure that you choose for an average annual salary, divide by six (or 4 or 7...launches per year), and there you have it.
The lessons of the shuttle have been seen as different depending on who you ask. In general, however, future designers look to systems with only one stage, automated checkout, and in some cases, overdesigned (more durable) low-tech systems.
Perhaps the most annoying aspect of the shuttle system is to consider the Air Force participation. While the blame rests solely at the feet of NASA for getting them involved in the first place, it was the Air Force requirements that drove the system to be as complex and expensive as it is today. Ironically neither NASA nor the Air Force got the system they wanted or needed, and the Air Force eventually threw in the towel and returned to their older launch systems and abandoned their Vandenburg shuttle launch plans. The capabilities which most seriously hobbled the Shuttle system, namely the 65,000 payload, large payload bay, and 1000 mile cross-range, have in fact, except for the payload bay, never been used.
Shuttle description
The Space Shuttle consists of four main components; the reuseable orbiter itself, a large expendable external fuel tank, and a pair of reusable solid-fuel booster rockets. The fuel tank and booster rockets are jettisoned during ascent. The longest the shuttle has stayed in orbit in a single mission is 17.5 days, on mission STS-80 in November 1996.
The Shuttle has a large payload bay taking up much of its length. The payload bay doors have heat radiators mounted on their inner surfaces, and so are kept open while the Shuttle is in orbit for thermal control. Thermal control is also maintained by adjusting the orientation of the Shuttle relative to Earth and Sun. Inside the payload bay is the Remote Manipulator System, also known as the Canadarm, a robot arm used to retrieve and deploy payloads. Until the loss of Columbia, the Canadarm has only been included on missions where it will be used. Since the arm is a crucial part of the Thermal Protection Inspection procedures now required for shuttle flights, it will likely be included on all future flights.
The Space Shuttle system has had numerous improvements over the years.
The Orbiter has changed its thermal protection system several times in order to save weight and ease workload. The original silica-based ceramic tiles need to be inspected for damage after every flight, and they also soak up water and thus need to be protected from the rain. The later problem was initially fixed by spraying the tiles with Scotchgard, but a custom solution was later developed. Later many of the tiles on the cooler portions of the Shuttle were replaced by large blankets of insulating felt-like material, which means huge areas (notably the cargo bay area) no longer have to be inspected as much.
Internally the Shuttle remains largely similar to the original design, with the exception that the avionics continues to be improved. The original systems were "hardened" IBM 360 computers connected to analog displays in the cockpit similar to contemporary airliners like the DC-10. Today the cockpits are being replaced with "all glass" systems and the computers themselves are many times faster. The computers use the HAL/S programming language. In addition several improvements have been made for safety reasons after the Challenger explosion, including a crew escape system for use in situation that require the Orbiter to "ditch". With the comming of the Space Station, the Orbiter's internal airlocks are being replaced with external docking systems to allow for a greater amount of cargo to be stored on the shuttle mid-deck during Station resupply missions.
The Space Shuttle Main Engines have had several improvements to enhance reliability and power. This is why during launch you may hear curious phrases such as "Go to throttle-up at 106%". This does not mean the engines are being run over-limit. The 100% figure is the power level for the original main engines. The actual engine contract requirement was for 109%. The original flight engines could handle 102%. The 109% number was finally reached in flight hardware with the Block II engines in 2001.
The external tank was originally painted white to protect the insulation that covers much of the tank, but improvements and testing showed that it was not required. This saves considerable weight, and thereby increases the payload the orbiter can carry into orbit. Additional weight was saved by removing some of the internal "stringers" in the hydrogen tank which proved to be unneeded in flight. The resulting "light weight external tank" has been used on the vast majority of shuttle missions. STS-91 saw the first flight of the "super light weight external tank". This version of the tank is made of the 2195 Aluminum-Lithium alloy. It weighs 7,500 lbs less than the last run of light-weight tanks. As the Shuttle cannot fly unmanned, each of these improvements have been "tested" on operational flights.
And, of course, the SRBs have undergone improvements as well. Notable is the adding of a third O-ring seal to the joints between the segments, which occurred after the Challenger accident.
A number of other SRB improvements were planned in order to improve performance and safety, but never came to be. These culminated in the considerably simpler, lower cost, probably safer and better performing Advanced Solid Rocket Booster which was to have entered production in the early to mid 1990s to support the Space Station, but was later cancelled to save money after $2.2 billion had been spent. The loss of the ASRB program forced the development of the SLWT, which provides some of the increased payload capability while not providing any of the safety improvements. In addition the Air Force developed their own much lighter single-piece design using a filament-wound system, but this too was cancelled.
Reusable launch system
A reusable launch system (or RLV: reusable launch vehicle) is a launch vehicle which is capable of launching more than one payload into space. This is in opposition to an expendable launch system where each launch vehicle is only used once and then discarded.No true reusable launch systems exist as of 2003. The closest example is the US Space Shuttle. The shuttle is partially reusable. The Orbiter itself and most of the Solid Rocket Boosters are reusable, the External Tank is not. The Orbiters and SRBs require several months of work to refit them for each launch.
RLVs are usually thought to provide the possibility of lower-cost access to space. However, given the lack of human experience with them, their actual costs are yet to be seen. The one existing semi-example, the Space Shuttle, is not at all an inexpensive vehicle.
Shuttle accidents
Two shuttles have been destroyed, both with the loss of all astronauts on board:
See also:
- Challenger - lost 73 seconds after lift-off, January 28, 1986
- Columbia - lost during re-entry, February 1, 2003: see Space Shuttle Columbia disaster
- Shuttle Buran
- Manned space mission
- List of crewed space missions chronologically
- List of crewed space missions alphabetically by programme
- Space disaster
External links
- Orbiter Vehicles
- NASA Human Spaceflight - Shuttle Current status of Shuttle missions
- [1] Shuttle Program Funding 1992 - 2002
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Space Shuttle program."
Synonyms: ShuttleSynonyms: bird (n), birdie (n), shuttlecock (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Navigation | Flight, trip; shuttle, run, airlift. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Pilot, get a tractor beam on that shuttle! (Farscape; writing credit: Olivier Cauvin) | |
Movie/TV Titles | The Shuttle (1918) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Periodicals |
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Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
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High Tech |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Space Shuttle Atlantis EVA. Credit: NASA. |  | Shuttle Destruction. Credit: NASA. |
 | The First Space Shuttle External Tank. Credit: NASA. |  | Astronomers using the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope (HUT), flown aboard the Shuttle ASTRO-2 ... Credit: NASA. |
 | Shuttle Discovery. Credit: NASA. |  | Shuttle Launch Pads. Credit: NASA. |
 | A space shuttle launch from Cape Canaveral provides a dramatic site for beach-goers. Credit: America's Coastlines. |  | Space Shuttle lifts off!. |
 | At the Women in Military Service to America Memorial's third anniversary celebration held Oct. 15 at Arlington National Cemetery, retired Brig. Gen. Wilma Vaught (left), helps Navy Lt. Comdr. Susan Kilrain, unveil the Shuttle Mission Display collage. Kilr. |  | In mulitple seam areas, shuttle car loading is used to avoid dilution of the potash ore. Credit: J. Olson. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |
| "Shuttle Pad 39B" by Sam Segar Commentary: "Kenneday Space Center, Shuttle lannch pad 39B." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| Play | Caption |
 | Piano and saxophone unison minor melody in a jazz shuttle style. |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Specialized molecules capture glucose molecules from blood and shuttle them into the neurons. (references) | |
During the October 29-November 7, 1998, Space Shuttle Discovery mission, NIDCD and NASA collaborated in another study of postflight balance control. (references) | ||
During such a treatment, shuttle vehicles called vectors deliver a functional copy of the defective gene-in this case, CFTR-either to cells throughout the body or to specific affected tissues such as the lungs. (references) | ||
Economic History | China | Indeed, photos of the Space Shuttle often appear in Chinese advertisements as a symbol of advanced technology. (references) |
Pakistan | In March of 1995, two American employees of the consulate in Karachi were killed and one wounded in an attack on the home-to-office shuttle. (references) | |
Travel | Colombia | Some of these hotels provide shuttle services to and from the airport. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Phrase(s) |
Rush Limbaugh | One of the most appalling things about the coverage of the space shuttle accident has been the Democrats' attempt to exploit the tragedy for petty political gain. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Speaker | Term | Phrase(s) |
Jimmy Carter | 1977-1981 | I have been pleased to support strongly the necessary funds for the Shuttle throughout my Administration. |
Ronald Reagan | 1981-1989 | We've seen the success of the space shuttle. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Shuttle" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 93.10% of the time. "Shuttle" is used about 348 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 93.1% | 324 | 15,993 |
| Lexical Verb (infinitive) | 2.59% | 9 | 117,287 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 2.01% | 7 | 133,076 |
| Noun (proper) | 2.01% | 7 | 133,076 |
| Noun (common) | 0.29% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 348 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| Country | Name |
| USA | Marine Shuttle Operations Inc. |
| (more examples...) |
Source: compiled by the editor from Icon Group International, Inc.
Expressions using "shuttle": air shuttle ♦ filling shuttle ♦ shuttle box ♦ shuttle bus ♦ shuttle bus service ♦ shuttle cock ♦ shuttle diplomacy ♦ shuttle helicopter ♦ shuttle movement ♦ shuttle race ♦ shuttle service ♦ shuttle shell ♦ shuttle smb. about ♦ shuttle train ♦ shuttle valve ♦ shuttle winder ♦ space shuttle ♦ Tatting shuttle ♦ to shuttle ♦ Weavers' shuttle ♦ weaving shuttle. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "shuttle": shuttle-bus, shuttle-orbiter, shuttle-worker. | |
Ending with "shuttle": space-shuttle, Super-shuttle, throcket-shuttle. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day | Expression | Frequency per Day |
space shuttle | 2,693 | japan shuttle | 101 |
space shuttle model | 997 | 9 cloud shuttle | 98 |
shuttle | 992 | shuttle pc | 96 |
super shuttle | 965 | prime shuttle time | 85 |
airport shuttle | 849 | shuttle xpc | 85 |
columbia shuttle video | 696 | airport shuttle service | 84 |
columbia space shuttle | 453 | airport shuttle seattle | 64 |
space shuttle challenger | 331 | space shuttle launch | 64 |
columbia shuttle | 208 | san diego airport shuttle | 64 |
shuttle model | 196 | oakland airport shuttle | 60 |
shuttle motherboard | 187 | cloud nine shuttle | 59 |
delta shuttle | 170 | shuttle launch | 55 |
lax shuttle | 157 | los angeles airport shuttle | 54 |
shuttle toy | 153 | san francisco airport shuttle | 53 |
space shuttle picture | 139 | airport shuttle services | 53 |
shuttle express | 134 | mears shuttle | 53 |
airport shuttle lax | 125 | space shuttle disaster | 52 |
shuttle service | 117 | shuttle services | 51 |
computer shuttle | 117 | primetime shuttle | 51 |
shuttle bus | 111 | arizona shuttle | 51 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Translations for "shuttle"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | sovjakë, vete-vjen (reciprocate), meqikë, drugë, çoj sa andej këndej. (various references) | |
Arabic | مكوك (bobbin, quill), وشيعة في مغزل, سافر ذهابا وايابا, التوشع ذهاب و إياب مستمران. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | совалка (quill, space shuttle), снова (shunt), затвор (bastille, bondage, calaboose, can, choky, clink, confinement, duress, gaol, hold, jail, jug, kitty, limbo, lock, lockup, mew, pen, penitentiary, pokey, pound, prison, prison house, quod, shop, shut off, shutter, stockade, stopper), подмятам напред-назад (shuttlecock), движа напред-назад. (various references) | |
Chinese | 梭 . (various references) | |
Czech | vesmírná loď, raketoplán (space shuttle), kyvadlová doprava (shuttle service), èlunek. (various references) | |
Danish | space shuttle (earth-to-orbit shuttle, space shuttle), skytter, skytte i væv (filling shuttle, weaving shuttle), skytte (marksman, pirn, shooter, spool, weft bobbin), shuttle (earth-to-orbit shuttle, space shuttle), transportservice (shuttle service), rørpostkapsel (rabbit, rabit), køre i pendulfart. (various references) | |
Dutch | spoeltje, spoel (bobbin, coil, spindle, spool), shuttle bus, schietspoel (rabbit, rabit), schietkoker (rabbit, rabit), ruimtezwever (earth-to-orbit shuttle, space shuttle), ruimteveer (earth-to-orbit shuttle, space shuttle), ruimtepont (earth-to-orbit shuttle, space shuttle), ruimtependel (earth-to-orbit shuttle, space shuttle), pendelvoertuig (shuttle service), pendelen (hunting, to shuttle), pendeldienst (shuttle service), pendel (commuter traffic, commuting, earth-to-orbit shuttle, home to work travel, home-to-work traffic, journey to and from work, space shuttle). (various references) | |
Farsi | ماکو (Hasp), لرزنده (Quaker, Shaky, Tremulous), ترنی که فقطدرمسیرمعینی امدورفت کند, رفت وامدن کردن . (various references) | |
Finnish | syöstävä (filling shuttle, weaving shuttle), sukkula (earth-to-orbit shuttle, space shuttle). (various references) | |
French | navette (earth-to-orbit shuttle, filling shuttle, shuttle service, space shuttle, weaving shuttle), faire la navette. (various references) | |
German | Pendelverkehr (commuter traffic, shuttle service, shuttles), webschützen, schiffchen (Carina, forage cap, keel, little boat, shuttles, small ship), pendeln (commute, fluctuate, oscillate, swing, to commute, to oscillate, to shuttle, vacillate). (various references) | |
Greek | κερκίσ, κερκίδα (tier), όχημα επαγγελματικής συγκοινωνίας, σαϊτα (dart), σαΐτα, σαΰτα αργαλείου, σαΰτα (dart), παλινδρομικό μέσο συγκοινωνίας, ειδικό δρομολόγιο (shuttle service), ειδική διαδρομή (shuttle service), εναλλαγή (alternation, alternative, commutation, interchange, stagger), τεχνολογία πυρηνικών αντιδραστήρων (a small container propelled pneumatically or hydraulically through a tube leading from the laboratory to a location in a nuclear reactor or other device where irradiation of a sample can take place.It is designed to provide short transit times to the labo, rabbit, rabit), διαστημικό λεωφορείο (space shuttle). (various references) | |
Hebrew | מסע דלוגים, לנסוע הלוך ושוב, בוכיר. (various references) | |
Hungarian | szövőke, zsiliptábla (sluice-valve), vetélõ, tiltótábla, rekesztőtábla, jár-kel (go about, to get around, to shuttle), ingajárat (shuttle service, shuttle-service, shuttle-train), ingaforgalom. (various references) | |
Italian | spola (spool), navetta (filling shuttle, shuttle service, weaving shuttle). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | ピストン輸送 (ice axe, period, periodic, PHS portable phone, piccolo, pick, picking, pickoff play, pickup service, pilaf, pile, Pilgrim Fathers, pill, pilling, pipette, piranha, pit, pit stop, pitch, pitcher, pitcher's mound, pitching, pitching machine, pitchout, Pithecanthropus erectus, pivot, pizza, pizzicato, Pulitzer, pure, pure malt, puree, purist, Puritan, pyramid, pyramid selling, pyrine, splashing sound, stilt), シャッポを脱ぐ (castle, chateau wine, Chateaubriand, shirt, shirt blouse, shirtwaist, shuttle bus, shuttle loop, shuttlecock, singlet, to take one's hat off), 下糸入れ . (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | ピストンゆそう, したいといれ, シャトル . (various references) | |
Korean | 근거리왕복수송. (various references) | |
Manx | spaal fidderagh, spaal. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | uttleshay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | lançadeira (bobbin, roller). (various references) | |
Romanian | suveicã, vanã de ecluzã (splash-board), navetã, face o mişcare de du-te vino. (various references) | |
Russian | челночный, челнок (canoe, dugout), колебаться колебание;челнок, двигаться вперед-назад (reciprocate). (various references) | |
Scottish | spàl (a shuttle, weaver's shuttle), seotal (shuttle of trunk). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | prevozno sredstvo na kratkim relacijama, prebacivanje po delovima, na kratkoj relaciji, kretanje napred i nazad, čunak (stovepipe). (various references) | |
Spanish | lanzadera (launcher). (various references) | |
Swedish | skottspole. (various references) | |
Thai | พาหนะขนส่งสาธารณะ, กระสวยเครื่องเย็บผ้า, กระสวย. (various references) | |
Turkish | mekik dokumak, mekik, karşılıklı sefer (shuttle service), ileri geri işlemek, gidip gelmek (get about, go and return, go regularly, run, seesaw), gidiş geliş seferi. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | рухатися туди й назад (oscillate), рухати туди й назад, човник (canoe), шухляда (desk, drawer), шатл, затвор (breech-block, obturator). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | làm cho qua lại như con thoi, con thoi động từ qua lại như con thoi. (various references) | |
Welsh | gwennol (martin, swallow). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Date | Source | Job Chapter 7, Verse 6 |
| Greek (transliterated) | 250 BC | Septuagint | O de bioV mou estin elafroteroV laliaV apolwlen de en kenh elpidi |
| Latin | 405 | Vulgate | Dies mei velocius transierunt quam a texente tela succiditur et consumpti sunt absque ulla spe |
| Jacobean English | 1611 | King James | My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope. |
| Victorian English | 1833 | Webster | My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope. |
| Basic English | 1964 | Ogden | My days go quicker than the cloth-worker's thread, and come to an end without hope. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Job Chapter 7, Verse 6 |
| Albanian | Ditët e mia janë më të shpejta se masuri i një endësi dhe po harxhohen pa shpresë. |
| Cebuano | Ang akong mga adlaw labing matulin kay sa lansadera sa maghahabol, Ug natapus nga walay paglaum. |
| Croatian | Dani moji brže od èunka proðoše, promakoše hitro bez ikakve nade. |
| Danish | Raskere end Skyttelen flyver mine Dage, de svinder bort uden Håb. |
| Dutch | Mijn dagen zijn lichter geweest dan een weversspoel, en zijn vergaan zonder verwachting. |
| Finnish | Päiväni kiitävät nopeammin kuin sukkula, ne katoavat toivottomuudessa. |
| French | Mes jours sont plus rapides que la navette du tisserand, Ils s`évanouissent: plus d`espérance! |
| German | Meine Tage sind leichter dahingeflogen denn die Weberspule und sind vergangen, daß kein Aufhalten dagewesen ist. |
| Hungarian | Napjaim gyorsabbak voltak a vetélõnél, és most reménység nélkül tünnek el. |
| Indonesian-Bahasa Sehari-hari | Hidupku yang tanpa harap itu melaju menuju akhirnya, lebih laju daripada penenun menjalankan sekocinya. |
| Indonesian-Terjemahan Lama | Bahwa segala hariku lajunya terlebih dari pada torak; lenyaplah sudah sekaliannya dan tiada dapat diharap kembali. |
| Maori | Ko oku ra hohoro atu i te rakau a te kaiwhatu; pau ake, te ai he tumanakohanga atu. |
| Norwegian | Mine dager farer hurtigere avsted enn en veverskyttel, og de svinner bort uten håp. |
| Portuguese | Os meus dias são mais velozes do que a lançadeira do tecelão, e chegam ao fim sem esperança. |
| Rumanian | Zilele mele sboarq mai iuyi deckt suveica yesqtorului, se duc wi nu mai am nicio nqdejde! |
| Russian | дОЙ НПЙ ВЕЗХФ УЛПТЕЕ ЮЕМОПЛБ Й ЛПОЮБАФУС ВЕЪ ОБДЕЦДЩ. |
| Spanish | Mis días son más veloces que la lanzadera del tejedor y se acaban sin que haya esperanza. |
| Swedish | Mina dagar fly snabbare än vävarens spole; de försvinna utan något hopp. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "shuttle": shuttlecock, shuttlecocked, shuttlecocking, shuttlecocks, shuttled, shuttleless, shuttles. (additional references) | |
| |
"Shuttle" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Schottle, shutle, shutten, skuttle, sutle, Sutlej, sutlet. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "shuttle" (pronounced shu"tul) |
| 4 | -u" t u l | subtle, rebuttal, scuttle, unsubtle. |
| 3 | -t u l | infantile, infertile, accidental, acquittal, anecdotal, artiodactyl, battle, beetle, belittle, betel, bicoastal, bottle, brattle, Bristol, brittle, brutal, butyl, Cantle, capital, Capitol, cattle, chattel, chortle, coastal, coincidental, committal, compartmental, congenital, consonantal, continental, crustal, crystal, dental, detrimental, developmental, digital, disgruntle, dismantle, distal, ductile, elemental, embattle, entitle, environmental, experimental, extramarital, fatal, fertile, fetal, fractal, frontal, fundamental, futile, genital, gentle, glottal, governmental, horizontal, hospital, hostel, hostile, hurtle, immortal, immotile, incidental, incremental, spittle, startle, subtitle, supplemental, tactile, tattle, temperamental, instrumental, intercontinental, intergovernmental, judgmental, kettle, Kittel, Kittle, lentil, lintel, little, mantel, mantle, marital, mental, metal, mettle, monumental, mortal, motile, Myrtle, Natal, neonatal, nettle, noncommittal, nonfatal, nongovernmental, nonvolatile, occidental, occipital, orbital, oriental, ornamental, parental, parietal, pedestal, periodontal, petal, Pistil, pistol, pivotal, portal, postal, postnatal, Pottle, prattle, prefrontal, premarital, prenatal, projectile, quintal, rattle, recital, rectal, regimental, rental, resettle, sentimental, settle, skeletal, skittle, societal, throttle, title, tittle, tootle, total, transcendental, transcontinental, transmittal, turtle, unsentimental, unsettle, varietal, vegetal, versatile, vestal, vital, vittle, volatile, Whittle, Wintle. |
