In commemoration of the Space Shuttle Discovery's last flight, I decided to post a link to the YouTube videos of MIT's Fall 2005 session of Aircraft Systems Engineering (16.885J). The course was co-taught by ex-shuttle astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman and ex-NASA official Aaron Cohen. It featured many guest speakers from the Shuttle program who went into a lot of technical detail about the system's design and operations.
All of the videos are good but my favorites are,
- Lecture 6: Space Shuttle Main Engines.
- Lecture 15: Space Shuttle Accidents. An excellent guest lecture by Sheila Widnall describing the investigation of the Columbia accident.
- Lecture 16: Guidance, Navigation, and Control. Great overview of the Shuttle's computer systems.
- Lecture 17: Mission Control. Guest lecture by Chris Kraft who held prominent positions in Mission Control during the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs.
Whenever I need a hard-core technical fix, I watch one of these videos. Works every time. These were real engineers.
Other materials from this course are available on MIT's OCW website.
Thank you Discovery for twenty seven years of service. It's disappointing that the space program is returning to rockets. It's just so 20th century.
