Norman Littlejohn's class (grade 6) - St Francis School, NF

The details of this answer depend on the personal experience of each astronaut. We can tell you that for the first two minutes of the eight and one half minutes of the ride to space the noise created by the solid rocket boosters is intense and the vibration experienced by the astronauts is tremendous. Many shuttle Commanders and Pilots have commented that is takes a great deal of concentration just to be able to read the information on their consoles during this period.

Once the solid rocket boosters drop off the ride becomes a lot smoother. Since the shuttle goes from zero kilometres per hour (km/h) on the launch pad to over 27 358 km/h in just over eight minutes the spacecraft accelerates at 3 218 km/minute. As a result, the G (gravitational forces) the astronauts experience can reach as much as 3G which has been compared to having an elephant sitting on one's chest. As soon as the obiter has gone through the earth's atmosphere, shed the external fuel tank and has reached space, the shuttle transforms from a rocket to a space ship and the crew inside no longer feels G forces. In fact, it is the exact moment that they first experience the sensation of floating in microgravity!

Anthony Brown (grade 4) - Tallahassee Community School, NS

The shuttle consists of an obiter, solid rocket boosters, and an external fuel tank. The obiter, which houses the astronaut crews on their way to space, and the solid rocket boosters, which provide lift to the spacecraft during launch, are reusable. The entire stack is 56 metres tall and weighs approximately 2.04 million kilograms, that's 378 African elephants!

Alex Gowman (grade 4) - Tallahassee Community School, NS

Each of the two solid rocket boosters on the shuttle carries more than one million pounds of solid propellant. The shuttle's large external tank is loaded with more than 450 000 kg of super cold liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, which are mixed and burned together to form the fuel for the shuttle's three main rocket engines. The three main engines burn fuel at an incredible rate–approximately 3 800 litres every second. In total, the space shuttle uses more than 3 million kg of thrust to get off the ground, pierce the earth's atmosphere and travel into orbit.

Colin Milligan's class (grade 6-7)-Empress Public School, Ontario

Flying the shuttle is more challenging than flying a typical aircraft, such as a commercial plane, because it operates in three major modes: as a rocket during launch, as a spaceship on orbit–which includes performing manoeuvres such as docking and undocking of the shuttle to the station, and as an aerodynamic glider during re-entry.

The many responsibilities of flying the shuttle fall to the commander, the pilot, the flight engineer and the Mission Control Centre at the Johnson Space Centre on the ground.

The commander and the pilot must carefully control all of these systems; the flight engineer who usually sits behind and in between the pilot and commander must double and even triple check all that the pilot and commander are doing. Did you know that Marc Garneau was the first Canadian, and only to date to be a flight engineer during his 3rd mission to space in December 2000?

Colin Milligan's class (grade 6-7)- Empress Public School, Ontario

The kind of space vehicles used to build the International Space Station depends primarily on the type of payload (materials) that needs to be transported. Up to now, three different kinds of launch vehicles from two countries, Russia and the United States, have been used to transport materials and crews to the International Space Station. Russia has provided the Proton Rocket, an unmanned rocket ship to transport large Space Station modules and supply materials as well as the Soyuz launch vehicle, a manned rocket, to bring the first Expedition crew of three to the International Space Station. The United States, via the space shuttle, has transported the majority of the modules, other types of technologies, like Canadarm2, and astronaut crews to the Space Station. Eventually other unmanned vehicles like Japan's H-II rocket and France's Ariane rocket may be used to support the transport and re-supply of materials as well.