This post is written by Amara Alexander, the 2019-20 Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow at the Library of Congress.
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy began a progressive expansion of the U.S. space program. Kennedy challenged the nation to land a person on the Moon by the close of the decade. Over the decades that followed, the progression from rockets to shuttle invited more astronauts to examine space and introduced new technologies.
The thermal protection system used on the space shuttle was devised to safeguard the craft from the extreme temperatures experienced while traveling through the atmosphere. Introduce students to some advances in space technology by examining primary sources.