The impacts of the Shuttle to the scientific community cannot be understated. Without it nor the ISS or Hubble telescope could have been deployed into orbit. I find this flow visualization very important and impactful because of the engineering limits that are shown at just a quick glance. You can see the shock wave off the front of the nose just misses the wings, if that was not the case, the wings would have been destroyed on reentry. The curvature of the wings allows for the shock wave to roll along the edges and untimely join with the nose shock wave thus preventing damage to the main structure. The intentional and complex design choices of the shuttle’s geometry can easily be seen by this simple image making it an excellent example of the importants of visualizing flow.

Still frame from color schlieren video sequence of a Space Shuttle Orbiter model in the Penn State Supersonic Wind Tunnelt. Published in the 2nd International Symposium on Flow Visualization.

Citation: Settles, Gary & Tremblay, Gabrielle & Cimbala, John & Dodson, Lori & Miller, J.. (2006). Teaching fluid mechanics with flow visualization videos.