NASA Announces Space Shuttles’ Final Homes

[n2doc]

By Lisa Grossman April 12, 2011 | 2:19 pm | Categories: Space


New York, Washington, Los Angeles, and Orlando, Florida will be the new homes of the retired space shuttles, announced NASA administrator Charlie Bolden in a ceremony today at Kennedy Space Center. The ceremony commemorated the 30th anniversary of the first shuttle flight; after the final shuttle flight in late June, the program will be shuttered forever.

The space shuttle Discovery, NASA’s longest-lived and most-traveled orbiter, will go to the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center just outside Washington, D.C.

The prototype shuttle Enterprise, which currently lives at the Udvar-Hazy Center, will be moved to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York. The USS Intrepid is a retired World War II aircraft carrier that recovered the capsules from the Mercury and Gemini space missions after splashdown.

The shuttle Endeavour will go to the California Science Center in Los Angeles after returning from its final flight, which is scheduled to launch April 29.

And the space shuttle Atlantis will retire to the Kennedy Space Center near Orlando, where every shuttle mission originated. Its last flight is scheduled for June 28.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/04/space-shuttles-homes/

[Drale]

1. There are going to be 3 on the east coast

They should have spread them out more and given one to Chicago, especially because the one on the Intrepid is probably going to be sitting outside on the flight deck.

[n2doc]

3. Agree. Or at least Houston

Nasa already has a full size mockup of a shuttle at Kennedy spaceport.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

4. Because the president is from Chicago, guaranteed we lose this one

[Drale]

6. I thought that would give us the leg up lol

although I thought that about the Olympics as well and we know what happened there.

[n2doc]

2. Book Excerpt: Space Shuttle Owners’ Workshop Manual

Chapter 3: Anatomy of the Space Shuttle

Author David Baker worked with NASA on the Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle programs between 1965 and 1984. He has written more than 80 books on spaceflight technology including his latest, the NASA Space Shuttle Owners’ Workshop Manual.
The Shuttle Orbiter is a reusable vehicle intended to carry astronauts and cargo to and from space. It is about the size of a DC-9 airliner and is designed to survive the rigors of launch and landing, including vibration, high acoustic levels from the rocket engines, high levels of acceleration and various heat loads on different parts of the structure. The layout is dominated by just two requirements – to carry a design payload of up to 65,000 lb to orbit, and to fly back down through the atmosphere like an aircraft, landing like a glider so that it can be used again.

Because of these requirements the Shuttle is shaped to look like an aircraft but to operate as a spacecraft. The structure of the Shuttle Orbiter comprises nine separate sections, or elements: the forward fuselage, the forward reaction control system module, the mid-fuselage, the payload bay doors, the aft fuselage, the vertical tail, the two orbital maneuvering system/reaction control modules and the wing.

more

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/04/shuttle-manual-excerpt/#more-56638

[Travis_0004]

5. Boo

I was hoping Dayton Ohio would get one, in the National Museum of the air force. The air force helped a lot with the program, and its free. I figure if tax payers paid to build the shuttle, they should not be forced to pay to see the shuttle. (Disclaimer, I live 20 minutes from the National Museum of the Air force)

[onehandle]

7. Houston seems to be annoyed that they didn't get one.

But this is from Gizmodo, which is manned by some of the worst writers* outside of World Net Daily, so another source probably would have been better.

http://gizmodo.com/#!5791384/houston-deserved-a-damn-space-shuttle

*Not right-wing, just bad.

[bbinacan]

8. Houston should have it over CA. n/t

[pokerfan]

9. Seattle Museum of Flight was hoping for one

especially because of the Boeing connection to the Shuttle program but alas, it was not to be.

[n2doc]

10. William Shatner talks space shuttle

In case you missed the William Shatner-narrated space shuttle video that NASA showed Tuesday in announcing who would get retired orbiters, here you go.

at link

http://blog.seattlepi.com/aerospace/2011/04/13/william-shatner-talks-space-shuttle/