Space Shuttles Discovery and Atlantis Meet One Last Time 52
longacre writes "One dull morning last week, two teams of NASA technicians simultaneously gathered at two iconic buildings — the 525-foot Vehicle Assembly Building and the shorter, but equally important Orbital Processing Facility 1 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, tasked with moving a space shuttle orbiter from one building to the other. The 'shuttle shuffle' would have Space Shuttle Discovery (the oldest and most flown orbiter surviving in the three-ship fleet) in OPF-1 swapping places with her sister ship, Atlantis, the second oldest and second most flown orbiter. Fleet leader Discovery would emerge from OPF-1 as a preserved spacecraft, gutted and mummified for museum display."
Re:I hate it when museums do this (Score:4, Interesting)
Can't agree more. The most damning part from the article...
She was no longer an operational machine or even capable of ever returning to operational status due the grievous wounds inflicted. Her innards were gutted in irreversible ways as part of the preservation efforts.
WTF are they preserving then? Why not just make a replica hull out of paper mache and put that in a museum if they're throwing away all of the shit that makes it work?