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."
SOUNDS SEXY !! (Score:1)
The two of them, together finally !!
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I'm not interested unless there's hot grits involved.
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no hot grits but plenty of tight straps.
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It would actually be a blast for them were it not for those damn vertical stabilizers.
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It's not a problem. Space shuttles typically... rendezvous... in space, where they can be in any position they like.
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In space, nobody hears you moan....
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It's only a Google search away:
http://rule34-data-001.paheal.net/_images/e87437d84ebd02ab3c9e8a8e5ef817f9/289857%20-%20Blackrose%20Boeing_747%20NASA%20Space_Shuttle%20airplane%20inanimate.jpg [paheal.net]
http://rule34-data-000.paheal.net/_images/4fb0a62354c27b6e69d1a2bdf5a15e43/191603%20-%20NASA%20Space_Shuttle%20Space_Transportation_System%20featured_image.jpg [paheal.net]
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Reminds me of an Edsel convention.
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The X-37 and X-40 programs started in 1999 as a test platforms.and have been very successful since then. And Boeing is also working on a manned version of the X-37 as well. Most of the capabilities and mission profiles are classified due to military capabilities. Air Force has has been using them for over 2 years without any widespread information regarding it's eventual uses, It is very similar to the security precautions that was used in the F-117 program. The US is terrible of keeping secrets but someh
Re:Why talk about them as people? (Score:4, Informative)
Ships and aircraft are commonly reffered to as 'she'. It's a long standing tradition. Don't get your panties in a wad.
One Last Time? (Score:1)
It was nice, it was short (Score:1)
So what did the have to say to each other? (Score:1)
Did they get along? Were they friendly?
How did this "meeting" go?
Look -- they are pieces of equipment they are not people or even animals for that matter. This is taking anthropomorphism way too far. It's one thing to refer to them as "she" and even to grow fond of them and revere them with the same affection you'd give a pet -- but to somehow imply they have consciousness is just silly.
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Look -- they are pieces of equipment they are not people or even animals for that matter. This is taking anthropomorphism way too far.
Yes, the shuttles hate that.
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Look -- they are pieces of equipment they are not people or even animals for that matter. This is taking anthropomorphism way too far.
Yes, the shuttles hate that.
Did they at least put the eyes in the right place?
http://jalopnik.com/5870976/how-pixar-screwed-up-cartoon-cars-for-a-generation-of-kids [jalopnik.com]
I hate it when museums do this (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate it when museums do this kind of thing to aircraft (or in this case spacecraft). Nothing is more uninteresting than a hollow shell body. Once the problematic liquids are drained there is no reason they can't leave the engines in place. The parts that make things like this interesting are all the mechanical components and displays that make up the actual vehicle. Every time I see this done to an aircraft, I can't help but think of how much of an utterly boring display it makes. They might as well erect a cardboard cutout equivalent, it's nauseating.
Re:I hate it when museums do this (Score:5, Informative)
The engines, in this case, are due to be used by the Space Launch System. They are planning on using 15 SSMEs from the shuttle program in the first launches of SLS. I'm sure a lot of the other components have similar fates, since the SLS is shuttle derived.
Aside from that, yes, I am totally with you. Seeing the Enterprise in DC was a rather empty experience. It looked like plywood.
The danger of distributed 3D printed museums (Score:1)
One function of museums is to be a repository of knowledge, art, and technology, for future generations. It's not the only function, but I would argue that it's the most
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However, by far the most effective way to preserve knowledge for the future is distributing it far and wide, ie copies in private houses, freely shared and duplicated, today.
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The first possibility seems pretty far off in the future. Probably not for giant laboratories with force tunneling microscopes and inert atmosphere or vacuum facilities. But for the home? The economies of having the space for the equipment, buying the eq
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?
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The main engines and associated plumbing were removed at NASA's behest, not the museums. NASA plans on reusing the them (and, unfortunately, disposing of them) on the first three flights of the new SLS rocket.
I believe they removed most of the tanks and plumbing from the RCS and OMS systems because the fuel they use is particularly nasty (they have to wear heavy-duty hazmat suits when working on them), and they were worried that the equipment would still be contaminated, even after it was purged, and most
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And why the hell not?!?!?!?!
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No, but a sister shuttle was always kept on ready as a backup to be sent up if the other shuttle needed to be rescued.
Re:This leads me to an interesting question... (Score:4, Informative)
a sister shuttle was always kept on ready as a backup to be sent up if the other shuttle needed to be rescued.
Only after the Columbia disaster. Prior to that, no.
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Only since Columbia, and only because we've grown so weak that we as a nation have become afraid of our own shadows that we only accept a 0% risk in any endeavor now. That's why China, Russia, and India will beat us back to the moon and beat us to Mars by decades.
We just threw away our only viable spacecraft, and now pay Russia to haul personnel to the ISS.What is the point in participating in ISS any more, if we're cutting NASA's budget to the bone? We just eliminated the only (publicly-acknowledged) viabl
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Only since Columbia, and only because we've grown so weak that we as a nation have become afraid of our own shadows that we only accept a 0% risk in any endeavor now. That's why China, Russia, and India will beat us back to the moon and beat us to Mars by decades.
The shuttle wasn't retired because the US is too risk-averse - there were plenty of other good reasons:
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Not entirely accurate, but close.
I think they definitely succeeded in the first part--making orbital travel routine. The inexpensive part, they didn't succeed but the method they were using to make it inexpensive was more of an accounting trick than some sort of new technology. The idea was to block people from using anything except the Shuttle to put things into orbit. The idea was that the Shut
Shuttle history (Score:2)
You may want to look up some of the shuttle history. Carrying out experiments in space was not the original idea. That was what the space station was for.
The original concept was a smaller vehicle, intended to move people and small cargo back and forth between a permanent manned space station. It was truly intended as a *shuttle*. It was intended for frequent launches; hence the interest in a reusable vehicle. Heavier payloads were intended for conventional rocket designs (some kind of Saturn evolution
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Lots of interesting research happens on ISS. The problem is that it's all boring sciency stuff
Actually, I work in one of the fields that was studied on the ISS (protein crystallography), and being familiar with the results that came out of there, I can attest to the spectacular inefficiency of that endeavor too. I don't have the expertise to comment on any of the other experiments, but the fact that protein crystallization research was a major justification for building the ISS is a red flag. I love borin
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We just threw away our only viable spacecraft
Guess we'll have to get SpaceX's Dragon working then. Too bad that SLS money won't help a bit.
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We just threw away our only viable spacecraft
Guess we'll have to get SpaceX's Dragon working then. Too bad that SLS money won't help a bit.
We didn't throw away "our only viable spacecraft" We shut down and put the mercy killing to an absolute failure of a manned system that wasn't ever going to deliver on it's promise on cheap and frequent access to Earth Orbit. Keeping it around because it's the only system we have is not a good enough reason to throw good money after bad.
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We just eliminated the only (publicly-acknowledged) viable solution for servicing satellites or for safely returning large loads from ISS. No one else has/had that tech before, and now nobody does. What a waste.
Plus one more thing I'll mention: gutting the shuttles is tremendously stupid. Think of future generations who would love to look at the engine, avionics, and other systems decades or centuries in the future; it would be like purposely burning books, leaving only the covers intact for future generations to see. Why bother putting the fuselage on display at all? It's a damned shame. There are only three shuttles in exsistence - they should keep them intact. Tear them down and decontaminate them to remove all traces of Hydrazine if you must mothball them, but for goodness sake keep them intact for future historians and archeologists!
Gutting museum ships is standard practice for various reasons. 1 of them is safety. Leaving many of them would be a long term fire or chemical hazard. 2. It simplified long-term maintenance which is not a trivial detail for museum exhibits. Another thing is that most of the parts removed would not be visible to musuem goers anyway unless the entire ship was cut up. Given that there's no way to make these craft flyable anway, making an issue of this is really stirring a tempest in a teapot. Also many o
Stop Anthropomorphizing the Shuttles,... (Score:3, Funny)
...the shuttles *really* hate that.
sad (Score:2)
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I'm watching the "From Earth to the Moon" series right now, and t made me pretty sad to see the one shuttle with its guts all removed, and the other moving in to share the same fate. I wonder if the U.S. will ever have a manned space program again. If NASA is like a lot of other government agencies, there is a large percentage of the workforce that is getting ready to retire and without a program to enable hiring younger people, I imagine that manned U.S. space flight will be done.
Posts like this almost make me split my sides. For DECADES, I've been reading posts from legions of verbal Slashdotters who've been crying for the end of NASA's manned space program. And now that they've actually gotten their desire, they're just as frothing mad as ever.
What did they have to say to each other? (Score:2)
Sounds like the ending of "Great Expectations" (Score:2)
In more ways than one.
"I don't believe we ever had a shuttle program." (Score:1)
Give it time, someone will argue it.