They both use rocket power to take off from Earth. In all other ways they are different.
The shuttle lands like an airplane, with wings on a runway. Apollo landed in the water by parachute.
Apollo went to the Moon, The shuttle cannot leave low Earth orbit.
Apollo was all liquid fuel. The shuttle uses solid rocket boosters.
Apollo was a small capsule that only had room for 3 people and almost no cargo. The shuttle is much larger and has carried up to 7 people and thousands of pounds of cargo at once.
Apollo was not a reusable space craft. Each one built could only fly once. The shuttle is reusable, with each one flying dozens of times.
Apollo used an ablative heat shield for protection from reentry heating. The heat shield actually was designed to vaporize as it heated. The shuttle uses special tiles that get hot but do not melt or vaporize.
The shuttle has a large cargo bay that can bring large, 40 foot long, multi-thousand pound payloads back from obit. Apollo had no cargo bay, only small things that fit in the crew cabin could be returned to Earth, like a couple hundred pounds of Moon rock.
2007-01-18 14:04:32
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answer #1
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answered by campbelp2002 7
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