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 of Defense's assistance and refused the request for the spacewalk, and thus the feasibility of scenarios for astronaut repair or rescue by "Atlantis" were not considered by NASA management at the time. NASA retired the Space Shuttle in 2011, after 30 years of service. The Shuttle was originally conceived of and presented to the public as a "Space Truck", which would, among other things, be used to build a United States space station in low earth orbit in the early 1990s. When the U.S. space station evolved into the International Space Station project, which suffered from long delays and design