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Endeavor Launch Pad Being Rebuilt Piece By Piece
dangle writes "The Exposition Park museum in LA is working to rebuild the Endeavor launch stack, a display that will take thousands of pieces to complete due to parts that are scattered at NASA facilities, museums and other places across the U.S. Most are one of a kind and impossible to replicate. Dennis Jenkins, who spent his entire 30-plus year career sending the shuttles into space, is playing a key role in locating essential parts using his own and his colleagues' institutional memory. Employed by NASA contractor Martin Marietta, he helped write the software used in loading and controlling the liquid oxygen needed to launch the 2,250-ton shuttle assembly into low Earth orbit. Now, with the program part of a bygone era of exploration, the 57-year-old works for the California Science Center, helping officials figure out how to rebuild Endeavour."
Did we get these from another space-faring civilization with whom we've lost contact or something? I'm betting the launch pad isn't going to be holding a new rocket, so making a copy of a piece in plastic shouldn't be THAT disastrous, or am I missing something?
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
I never got to see a space shuttle launch, and it's one of those things that I'm going to regret forever. On the flip side, I've been able to get up-close and personal with 2 shuttles now, the Enterprise and the Discovery, thanks to the awesome displays in NYC and DC. Getting a chance to see the entire stack on display would just blow my mind, so I really hope this project comes to fruition. I'm probably going to make the trek to the west coast at some point to see the shuttle, but it'd be so much cooler to see the whole stack.
Considering that it was how we moved big stuff in to space and current relations with Russia going south (with Russia being our only ticket to the ISS), we better get to those "potential future programs" pretty damn fast.
You mean spending $250 million dollars to restore Endeavor to its original flight worthy condition through the use of original, certified parts so that it can be on display for middle schoolers for their field trips to the Science Center may not be a particularly sound idea when "this ship has been in space dozens of times" would still have them saying WOAH! even if a 30lb retention bolts shown connecting the shuttle to its fuel tank couldn't really hold the sheering force of a launch?
Thirty four characters live here.
Thousands of years from now archaeologists will uncover the previously unknown LA launch site and will confuse the hell out of them.
"The discovery of this launch site is extraordinary in that we never knew of this location being used for launching the Space Shuttle. It doesn't appear in any NASA records we're found so perhaps this was a top-secret location. We are, however, puzzled as to why they would have a launch facility in the middle of such a large sprawling city. One theory we have is that this was a decoy launch site used to confuse the Japanese during the second world war. This finding may rewrite history!"
And I think about the semi-snarky comment "If we build buildings like we build software, the first woodpecker would destroy civilization", I find myself wondering how anything get's accomplished for real. It seems the really BIG stuff, is a huge one-off and not replicable
Considering that it was how we moved big stuff in to space and current relations with Russia going south (with Russia being our only ticket to the ISS), we better get to those "potential future programs" pretty damn fast.
Here is - quite literally - a fu*king rocket scientist devoting his time and energy NOT towards building a better world or improving the advancement of our society. Instead, he's spearheading a massive effort to construct a self-congratulatory museum-piece.
If you want a textbook illustration for the meaning of "decadence" in the context of a civilization, you can read it in the above.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
It looked good even if it was a temporary location. I have to say it was a bit sad buying the kiddo a shuttle toy knowing she now a days can't really realistically dream of being an astronaut in the US. Maybe a few years from now the outlook will be more positive (Not to discount what companies like SpaceX are doing. Just without an active NASA manned space program it just doesn't seem the same.)
You... don't really get "museums," do you? They're trying to preserve history. Are you really saying a museum shouldn't try to use the original historic parts when they're available, just because it's harder to acquire a few of them? Do you really think middle schoolers are the best metric to rate the value of a preservation effort?
Here is - quite literally - a fu*king rocket scientist devoting his time and energy NOT towards building a better world or improving the advancement of our society. Instead, he's spearheading a massive effort to construct a self-congratulatory museum-piece.
If you want a textbook illustration for the meaning of "decadence" in the context of a civilization, you can read it in the above.
This rocket scientist has had his career, he's put in his 30. If he wants to devote his retirement to helping make sure people don't forget what we were once capable of, more power to him.
This is a worthwhile endeavor. Suuuuure. With the shortage of funds for the arts these days, is THIS what a museum spends money on?
He hunted down the bolt and finally found it. How is this bad?
Really? We are going to spend money building a launch pad for a rocket that will never fly again, rather than on rockets that will? I'd be a lot more tolerant of this sort of thing if we had something now that replaced the shuttle.
How is the plan to pay the Russians to put our astronauts in space looking now.....
Because there is no profit in it? Public museums and history are for takers....
This is a textbook illustration of trying to get people, and especially kids, interested in science. If people can't see things like this, they will lose interest. Kids won't study with aspirations of doing things like this. Adults won't approve taxes to help fund the sciences. Our economy will continue to lose ground to the countries that are making science important.
Seeing pictures and videos of the shuttle in action is impressive. Actually seeing it in person, and the displays set up at the Science Center are even more impressive.
Seeing pictures and videos of the shuttle in action is impressive. Actually seeing it in person, and the displays set up at the Science Center are even more impressive.
If you are easily amused by big pieces of metal, more than big ideas. If you honour past achievement more than future possibility. Yes, then you are right.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
If it was made once, it could be made again. It's not art -- it's engineering.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
It's like "2010" only a few years late.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Shuttle was a corporate boondoggle - not an advancement.
Who reaped benefit? Not many. Tiny payload, infrequent launches, marginal utility, except as a transitional step that was never followed up in a quarter-century. DynaSoar Dinosaur.
The STS was a tax funnel to Rockwell, Martin (Lockheed), etc.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."