Shuttle launches are audacious displays of smoke, steam and a gigantic man-made vessel being thrust into space. Documenting in-the-moment details can be tricky — the press site for photographers is 5km from the pad itself. That just wasn’t close enough for Dan Winters.
On 30 August, 1984, the space shuttle Discovery launched on its first voyage to space. It wasn’t the first, but over the next 27 years it became the undeniable king of NASA’s shuttle program.
I’ve seen the space shuttle in every possible way and angle. Even at the launch pad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. But I’ve never seen it completely shrink-wrapped, as if someone just ordered one from Amazon.