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Space Shuttles Discovery and Atlantis Meet One Last Time

Posted by Soulskill on from the at-least-until-bruce-willis-needs-to-deflect-an-asteroid dept.

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."

4 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. Why talk about them as people? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    TFS refers to the shuttles almost like they were living creatures, lovers who are being separated by cruel fate. Puh-leez. Why is this garbage here?

    1. Re:Why talk about them as people? by Picass0 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Ships and aircraft are commonly reffered to as 'she'. It's a long standing tradition. Don't get your panties in a wad.

  2. Re:I hate it when museums do this by cadeon · · Score: 4, 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.

  3. Re:This leads me to an interesting question... by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 3, 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.