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On EBay: Shuttle Flight Deck Simulator
An anonymous reader writes: "Just to pass time before taking the real trip.
shuttle flight deck simulator" Not a real nasa simulator, but a very impressive operating replica. The construction details are quite interesting too.
Basically, when he says "To my knowledge, there is not another like it in the world.", he may be right (to his knowledge, but then that just means that he is not very knowledgeable). There are other Space Camps around the US and the world (they are franchisees from the original in Huntsville) and at least some of them also have simulators.
He tried selling this thing a total of 4 times, each of which he recieved NO BIDS AT ALL! It took him 3 times to sell his Actual NASA Mission Control Console Computer. Here are his attempts to sell that: First: Wanted $199, no bids Second: Wanted $175, no bids Third: Sold that thing for $50 Chances are by the time he sells this, it will be around $1000...
it was explained quite clearly on the web page. there was even a link for "what is included in the auction". you get all of the panels, the mission timer, joysticks, some flight manuals + flipbooks, power supplies and software. you don't get the chair or any of the misc things in the picture.
Many grants come from private sources. My mother was a teacher and got a load of cool tech gadgets from a weather study grant once (digital cams, laptops, etc..) in the early 90's. The grant specifically stated that any materials/items bought with the grant were NOT to be given to the school system when the project completed. So she could keep them, sell them, eat them, whatever.
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security
What is this guy up to? When you look at the pictures and the price, it seems like a really cool simulator/mockup. But, digging a little deeper and looking at the list of items that are *actually* being auctioned off, there are a lot of things missing.
Not included are a few panels, headphones, TV sets, *the actual framework* that all this mounts on. One wonders why. Basically all your getting for $15,000 is some very nice looking skins. They're non functional and a lot of assembly/construction will be required.
But, what is he going to do with things like the framework? It sounds to me like he is dissatisfied with version 1.0 and is dumping the skins so that he can start version 2.0. Sorry pal, for $15,000 I expect the entire rig, as well as some support for putting it back together after shipping.
Uh, www.orbitersim.com is no longer. Perhaps you wanna go back to the original site which a quick google search found.
The simulator shown is incredibly authentic, but I think there are actually TWO such non-Nasa sims. I saw one about 15 years ago at a mall that was having a "air and space hobby" show.
The sim shown is what we call "Pre-MEDS". MEDS was an update to the cockpit (Multifunction Electronic Display System) to update the shuttle to semi-modern "glass cockpit", that is, use computer monitors instead of actual gauges.
Also, there were two original simulators used to develop procedures and do leading-edge-of-wing math modeling in the early 80's and I understood that those two simulators (real NASA sims!) were sold to private individuals or companies (as scrap, as far as Nasa was concerned). I may be wrong about that.
PS: I've worked at Nasa's shuttle astronaut training center since 1979.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.