Space art Four original oil paintings by American artist Ellery Kurtz were flown in one of NASA's Get Away Special (G.A.S.) container mounted to a bridge in the shuttle cargo bay. These original works of art are the first oil paintings to enter Earth orbit. This NASA GAS canister, designated G-481, was the 46th such canister flown aboard a Space Shuttle. The Space Shuttle "Columbia" orbited the Earth 98 times during its mission duration time of 6 days, 2 hours, 3 minutes and 51 seconds. "Columbia" was launched from Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida, on January 12, 1986 and landed at
Space Shuttle program shuttle design that best balanced capability, development cost and operating cost. Ultimately chosen was a design using a reusable winged orbiter, reusable solid rocket boosters, and an expendable external fuel tank for the orbiter's main engines. The shuttle program was formally launched on January 5, 1972, when President Nixon announced that NASA would proceed with the development of a reusable space shuttle system. The stated goals of "transforming the space frontier...into familiar territory, easily accessible for human endeavor" was to be achieved by launching as many as 50 missions per year, with hopes of driving down per-mission costs. The prime