Space Shuttle program upgrade equipment for Hubble were ready and waiting in NASA warehouses. Many dissenters, including astronauts , asked NASA management to reconsider allowing the mission, but initially the director stood firm. On October 31, 2006, NASA announced approval of the launch of "Atlantis" for the fifth and final shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, scheduled for August 28, 2008. However SM4/STS-125 eventually launched in May 2009. One impact of "Columbia" was that future crewed launch vehicles, namely the Ares I, had a special emphasis on crew safety compared to other considerations. NASA maintains extensive, warehoused catalogs of recovered pieces
Space Shuttle America Space Shuttle America Space Shuttle America (also known as Space Shuttle America - The Next Century) was a motion simulator ride at the Six Flags Great America theme park in Gurnee, Illinois, that opened in 1994. The ride's main feature was a full-scale replica of an American Space Shuttle orbiter. It closed permanently after the 2007 season and was removed in December 2009. The storyline of the ride was that riders have boarded a new Space Shuttle called "America", which is capable of transporting passengers to the fictional Armstrong City using the LRVM (Lunar Run Velocity Management) Warp. Armstrong City