NASA: Up close and personal with three special old ladies.

[scoop]

Been a while sinceI posted anything, so I thought I'd share these here....

To mark the occasion of the last remaining filghts of Endeavour and Atlantis, a few shots from a recent trip. Comments welcome.


Starting off with Old Lady no. 1, Atlantis, in prep for the last ever Shuttle trip, presently residing in Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) 1:

She'll shortly head in through the Low Bay doors dead centre, into the transfer aisle of the VAB, and lifted into High Bay 1 (on the left of photo) using the crane off to the RHS:

..onto here, MLP (Mobile Launch Platform) 3, being stacked with SRBs. Two holes at the rear are the SRB exhaust, the largest hole is the exhaust for the SSMEs (Space Shuttle Main Engines):

The SRBs wil be topped off with the nosecones, enclosing the recovery parachutes:

Another view of the VAB, looking from the Low Bay, into the High Bay, toward High Bays 3 and 4:

 

[scoop]

Once complete, she'll look like Old Lady no 2, Endeavour, on the pad ready for Friday's launch. She's enclosed on the pad partly for protection from the hail and tornados passing through on the day:

And, last but by no means least, Old Lady no. 3, with 365 days in orbit and 150 million mileson the clock, Dsicovery in OPF2, being prepped for delivery to the Smithsonian, and a well earned rest.

More from the Cape to follow at some point.....

 

[slothmeister]

.......hold on, you cant just post these awesome pics without giving us a bit of backstory, How did you get this close the assembly, surely not on a normal tourist tour thing.

Really love the sense of hugeness that you get with shot 2

 

[Cosimo]

Great pictures. How did you get into the VAB?

 

[Columbo]

WTF dude..??!!

You got access to all this and just post these little tasters with no story behind them or how you got in there..!!

I want more and I want more now dammit..!

PS: awesome pics btw

 

[arknor]

i'd love to get close to those must make you feel so small

 

[Darkman]

Great shots. Story needed

 

[scoop]

You're right, it's a long time since the VAB has been on the normal tourist trips (though whether it will be in future once the Shuttle programme ceases with no replacement is anyone's guess?). So I'll relent and tell the story.....

Basically, I asked very, very, very nicely....... I was heading out to Florida on business and planned to visit KSC anyhow, to do a tour or two. However, the reason I do what I do was thanks to my old (now late) High School chemistry teacher, who showed us that science isn't dull and boring, but can be used to do "real stuff" with. To demonstrate, he showed us his PhD thesis, on the decomposition of perchloric acid mixed with various metals. To you and me, that's the basis of the fuel used in the SRBs.

Having this specific and relevant connection between the trip I was on and the SRB programme, I thought it was worth asking if I could bring the two full circle and see what the response would be, not really anticipating anything would happen. Until the nice letter rom NASA arrived on Christmas Eve last year......

Almost missed out on the VAB tour, as the crews should have been stacking the SRBs that day, but it was called off due to a "Phase 2 lockdown", i.e. probable imminent tornados. However, that same lockdown also almost precluded the VAB tour and Pad 39A driveby on safety grounds. VAB access was clearly described as "at our own risk"!

Just goes to show what happens on occasion if you ask nicely.......

 

[scoop]

Really love the sense of hugeness that you get with shot 2

It really doesn't do it justice. The high bay will happily accomodate Blackpool tower (including the building at the base) height-wise. The Low bay alone is almost tall enough to fit in the towers of Westminster Abbey...... The shot of the High Bays is deceptive, as the aisle that you see is only about a third of the width of the building, with the bays themselves surrounded by scaffolding and framework, so it's considerably wider than the pictures make it appear.

It's perfunctory and somewhat bare inside, but it gives a real sense of purposeful, no-frills engineering.....

 

[Dokinator]

Very good

 

[scoop]

By popular request, publicly and privately, a few more for you to browse...

Atlantis:

External Tank attachment points, front....

And rear....

A slightly different view; under the rear flight surface, looking toward the main engines:

Discovery: again from a different angle.

Inside the Orbiter: (Alas, not the real one, but a mock-up at the Visitor's Center.)

Pad 39A, crawler transporter. Parked up in case Endeavour needs to be transported back to the VAB due to weather or technical issues:

And the VAB (outside, this time). Who says it's always sunny and dry in Florida??

 

[DB_SamX]

Awesome!

 

[spartan225]

Absolutely amazing photos, and Atlantis is fairly cool as well

 

[sbi5ar]

Oh so very jealous right now!

Amazing stuff... Loving the heat shield pic looking at the rear engine!

 

[scoop]

I was astounded to hear that each and every one of the thousands of tiles on each orbiter are a unique size and shape, and that each one is hand made......that's a hell of a lot of man-hours for all those tiles.

Apparently, if they were any bigger, or more uniform, the flexes in the orbiter chassis upon launch stress and the expansion/contraction cycles the orbiter goes through in orbit (going from full sun to no sun and back) would damage the tiles to the extent of them being ineffective.....