Space Shuttle Orbiter Challenger

In the mid-1980’s, Stan was invited to become a NASA Art Program participant. This was set up to provide NASA with a great selection of artist with a wide array of styles to document the people and events of NASA.

Stan’s first outing as a NASA Artist was to take part in the reentry and landing of the Challenger. This was when the Space Shuttles were still landing on Edwards Air Force Base’s huge Rogers Dry Lake bed. Landing on the dry lake gave the landing aircraft and spacecraft more flexibility than using a traditional runway.

On its approach from space, the Challenger first crossed over the dry lake at 40,000 feet with the maneuvering rockets leaving a trail of white puffs behind the little dot that was the spacecraft. In less than 5 minutes, Challenger was flaring to land. As its main gear touched Earth, a large rooster tail of dust went up behind the craft. Ir looked really cool!

As the Challenger came to a stop, the decontamination unit, in their space suits, went out to check for toxic fumes. They put large fans on Challenger for about 1/2 hour, then cleared it as safe.

With some help, the astronauts exited. Then the science experiments were removed. At this point, Stan was cleared to go up to Challenger and take all of the photos that he desired. His total number of photos was about 360! You don’t get a chance like that very often and he didn’t want to miss anything! For one of the photos, another person using Stan’s camera, took a photo of Stan in front of the Spacecraft. All-in-all, it was glorious day!

None of us there had any idea that this would be Challenger’s last landing!