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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- A bald eagle perches on a pole on Launch Pad 39A, seemingly monitoring the instruction of the space shuttle Atlantis STS-122 crew on slidewire basket operation, part of the emergency exit system on the fixed service structure of the pad. Bald eagles use a specific territory for nesting (they mate for life), winter feeding or a year-round residence. Its natural domain is from Alaska to Baja, California, and from Maine to Florida. Bald eagles have a presence in every U. S. state except Hawaii. There are a dozen eagle nests in both Kennedy Space Center and the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which surrounds Kennedy. Bald eagles live near large bodies of open water such as lakes, marshes, seacoasts and rivers, where there are plenty of fish to eat and tall trees for nesting and roosting. Bald eagles feed primarily on fish, but also eat small animals (ducks, coots, muskrats, turtles, rabbits, snakes, etc.). Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett KSC-07pd3396
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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- A bald eagle perches on a pole on Launch Pad 39A, seemingly monitoring the instruction of the space shuttle Atlantis STS-122 crew on slidewire basket operation, part of the emergency exit system on the fixed service structure of the pad. Bald eagles use a specific territory for nesting (they mate for life), winter feeding or a year-round residence. Its natural domain is from Alaska to Baja, California, and from Maine to Florida. Bald eagles have a presence in every U. S. state except Hawaii. There are a dozen eagle nests in both Kennedy Space Center and the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which surrounds Kennedy. Bald eagles live near large bodies of open water such as lakes, marshes, seacoasts and rivers, where there are plenty of fish to eat and tall trees for nesting and roosting. Bald eagles feed primarily on fish, but also eat small animals (ducks, coots, muskrats, turtles, rabbits, snakes, etc.). Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
The Space Shuttle program was the United States government's manned launch vehicle program from 1981 to 2011, administered by NASA and officially beginning in 1972. The Space Shuttle system—composed of an orbiter launched with two reusable solid rocket boosters and a disposable external fuel tank— carried up to eight astronauts and up to 50,000 lb (23,000 kg) of payload into low Earth orbit (LEO). When its mission was complete, the orbiter would re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and lands as a glider. Although the concept had been explored since the late 1960s, the program formally commenced in 1972 and was the focus of NASA's manned operations after the final Apollo and Skylab flights in the mid-1970s. It started with the launch of the first shuttle Columbia on April 12, 1981, on STS-1. and finished with its last mission, STS-135 flown by Atlantis, in July 2011.
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