The bravery, the ingenuity, the collaboration on a massive scale that could design and engineer everything from microscopic circuitry to million
pound rocket boosters simply filled me with admiration and awe.
The space shuttle, external tank, two companion
booster rockets, and fuel payload had a combined launch weight of approximately 4.4 million
pounds, 3.785 million
pounds of which was just the weight of the fuel — the bare, cargo - free shuttle itself only had a weight of 165,000
pounds.