Shuttle Glides to an Incident-Free Landing article

This article talks about the shuttle Atlantis coming back to Earth. It spent 12 days in orbit to help the construction of the international space station. They were a bit worried about the mission, because the memory of the 2003 Columbia incident was still there. That was when the shuttle Columbia disintegrated while trying to reenter the Earth's atmosphere because of the broken part of the wing.

When reentering the atmosphere, there is a lot of accelerations involved. First off, the shuttle had to slow down 205 mph. Then, gravity began to bring it down at about 32 feet/second. When entering the atmosphere, the shuttle reaches a terminal velocity when the air resistance pushing up equals gravity's acceleration. When the shuttle is reaching this terminal velocity, the friction from the air causes a tremendous amout of heat. That heat is what made Columbia desintegrate.

I can't wait for the international space station to finish being constructed. It will be the next step toward sending a human to another planet. If they get this space station working well, they can start constructing other stations further and further away. These stations can be used kind of like rest stops along the way to another planet. A ship could refuel there to let it go on the next leg of the journey. But we have quite a bit of work ahead of us before we can get there.