An American Tragedy---Restart Shuttle---Use & Improve Shuttle

 
 
 
 
Tomorrow (Tuesday) NASA’s first Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (NASA 905) will deliver Space Shuttle Discovery to Washington’s National Air & Space Museum annex at Dulles International Airport. A departure from KSC at about 7 am EDT would put wheels down at about ~10:45 following a KSC-area and Washington-area low fly by.
 
By late afternoon Thursday, April 19, Discovery will have swapped places with Enterprise and be positioned in its permanent home inside the Udvar-Hazy hangar. Discovery arrived at KSC 29 yrs ago on Nov. 9, 1983 for preparations toward its first flight (STS-41D) on Aug. 30, 1984.
 
-KjH (NASA Public Affairs)
" We are alive,
"To stand shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart"
 
NEWS SPECIAL – The “Last” Flight of Discovery
 

 
HEADLINES AND LEADS
 
Discovery’s last flight sends it to Smithsonian
 
Brian Vastag - Washington Post
 
When you’re one of the world’s most famous museums taking possession of the world’s most famous spaceship, the first question is also the biggest: how to display it. For Valerie Neal, curator of human spaceflight at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, the answer was simple: Present the space shuttle as if it had just landed, gear down, payload doors closed, underbelly scorched. All that will be missing is the smell.
 
Discovery rolls to the runway for retirement ride
 
Justin Ray - SpaceflightNow.com
 

 
In the predawn darkness Saturday, the shuttle Discovery moved ever closer to leaving her home port forever as remaining technicians towed the decommissioned spaceplane to the runway ramp for mounting atop the 747 carrier jet. Emerging from a storage bay on the northwestern side of the Vehicle Assembly Building at 5 a.m. EDT, the orbiter passed the former mission preparation hangars, crossed State Road 3 and followed the concrete towway to the Shuttle Landing Facility apron, arriving at the Mate-Demate Device at 7 a.m. EDT. Having survived the massive layoffs and workforce reductions following the shuttle program's shutdown, a handful of ground specialists went to work getting the four-point lifting structure hooked up to Discovery for the ascent off the ground, retraction of the landing gear and pulling the 747 underneath the spacecraft.
 
‘What a phenomenal vehicle’: Discovery’s pilots recall amazing rides
 
Brian Vastag - Washington Post
 
Space shuttle Discovery flew the most missions of NASA’s five orbiters, 39. But on her inaugural mission, she balked. It was June 25, 1984. Michael Coats, now director of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, was the pilot. As the countdown hit “five,” the first of Discovery’s three main engines flared, then the second. The shuttle rocked forward and back, pulling at the eight big bolts holding her to the launchpad — a motion known as the “twang.” The third engine never lit.
 
Space shuttle Discovery takes the ground crew’s hearts with it
 
Brian Vastag - Washington Post
 
Travis Thompson remembers the first job he did inside the space shuttle, small as it was. He painted bits of the hardware on an audio panel on the mid-deck, the shuttle’s living quarters. It was 1979. The first launch was two years away. Thompson was 19. The kid in Calfornia who had watched space launches, who had fed on TV footage of giant rockets roaring toward the moon, was inside a spaceship. Thirty-three years later, Thompson welcomed a visitor to the retired space shuttle Discovery with those same words: “You’re inside a spaceship.”
 
Space Shuttle Discovery Mounted Atop Jumbo Jet for Ride to Smithsonian
 
Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com
 
NASA mounted space shuttle Discovery on a jumbo jet Sunday (April 15), in preparation for the retired orbiter's delivery to the Smithsonian. The paired air- and spacecraft are expected to depart Florida for Washington, D.C., on Tuesday morning (April 17), weather permitting. Discovery's mating to the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), NASA's modified Boeing 747 jetliner, came a day later than the space agency had planned. On Saturday, wind gusts at the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility set the 167,000 pound (75,300 kilogram) Discovery swaying under its lift sling, posing a risk that it could impact the Mate Demate Device (MDD), the gantry-like steel structure used to hoist the shuttle onto the jetliner.
 
Discover some facts about Discovery
 
Washington Post
 
Look, up in the sky. It’s a bird; it’s a plane; it’s a space shuttle! Tuesday morning, if the weather is good, the space shuttle Discovery will fly piggyback on a 747 jet over parts of the Washington area on its way to landing about 10:40 a.m. at Dulles International Airport. Then on Thursday, the shuttle will be moved to the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center, where it will be on display for everyone to see. If you’re thinking “but I’ve already seen a shuttle at the museum,” you’d be right. But that is the shuttle Enterprise, which never actually flew in space. Discovery went on lots of fascinating and historic missions.
 
Space shuttle Discovery to make visible flyover before it's mothballed
 
Brian Vastag - Washington Post
 
After 39 trips to space, NASA's oldest surviving shuttle is making one more flight, to its retirement home, the Smithsonian's cavernous Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles International Airport. Before the shuttle lands, NASA plans to show off the retired space truck in a spectacular flyover visible to much of the region. Weather permitting, Discovery and its carrier 747 will depart Kennedy Space Center in Florida around 7 a.m. on Tuesday and arrive in the Washington area around 10 a.m. for a 40-minute aerial tour. NASA and National Air and Space Museum officials refused to release full details of the flight path, citing security concerns. One NASA official, requesting anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record, acknowledged that keeping the flight path secret would diminish the number of viewers who duck outside for the historic sight.
 
Discovery space shuttle: Where to watch the D.C. flyover
 
Brian Vastag - Washington Post
 
On Tuesday morning, if the weather’s clear, well-placed Washingtonians might hear a rumble, maybe even a roar. Look up. It’s a spaceship winging over Washington, space shuttle Discovery riding piggyback on a silver 747. After 39 trips to space, NASA’s oldest surviving shuttle is making one more flight, to its retirement home, the Smithsonian’s cavernous Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles International Airport. Before landing, NASA plans to show off the retired space truck in a spectacular flyover visible to much of the region. Weather permitting, Discovery and its carrier 747 will depart Kennedy Space Center in Florida around 7 a.m. and arrive in the Washington area around 10 a.m. for a 40-minute aerial tour.
 
Delivering the space shuttles is tougher than you think
 
Richard Simon - Chicago Tribune
 
When you need to move a nearly 175,000-pound space shuttle with a 78-foot wingspan, who you gonna call? NASA, of course. But also companies that own big cranes. In New York, call a barge owner. And in Los Angeles, traffic engineers and the LAPD. Delivering retired orbiters to their final display sites in Los Angeles, New York, the Washington, D.C., area and Florida’s Kennedy Space Center is presenting special challenges to the agency that put men on the moon.
 
Now boarding: Inside NASA's Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft
 
Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com
 
Space shuttle Discovery's ride to retirement, NASA's modified Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), has come a long way since it first took to the air in the 1970s as an American Airlines passenger jumbo jet. Now an iconic craft in its own right with more than 800 flights in service to NASA, the original of two SCAs will embark on the first of its final ferry flights next week. Known as NASA 905, referring to its tail number, the 747 will deliver space shuttle Discovery to Washington, D.C. on April 17 for public display by the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.
 
How NASA Moves Space Shuttles: The Ultimate Piggyback Ride
 
Clara Moskowitz - Space.com
 
NASA's space shuttles are gearing up to make their final voyages — this time flying piggyback a special Boeing 747 jet on the way to museum retirement homes. The space shuttle Discovery, which flew its last mission in March 2011, has been undergoing prep for museum life at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Fla. If weather permits, on Tuesday, Discovery will fly atop a modified Boeing jet to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va., where it will spend the rest of its days. After Discovery arrives at the Smithsonian, the museum's current orbiter on display, the prototype shuttle Enterprise, will be loaded onto the same carrier aircraft to be ferried to its new home: the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City. The transportation of shuttles is a complicated affair, involving giant cranes and rejiggered Boeing jets. And in addition to a slew of complex equipment, the maneuver requires significant manpower.
 
Bidding farewell to shuttle Discovery
Newspaper's space coverage lures top-notch reporters from afar
 
Bob Stover - Florida Today (Commentary)
 
(Stover is executive editor of Florida Today and has worked at the newspaper since 1992)
 
This week we say goodbye to shuttle Discovery. It will parade down the beaches Tuesday morning on the back of a 747 before departing for its new home in the Smithsonian. The first time I saw a shuttle piggybacked in this way was in the mid-’90s while on a golf driving range on Lake Washington Road, practicing my slice, which seemed to get better with every stroke. At one point, I raised my head and was confronted with a winged monster sailing right over my head. It was so low, it looked like it was heading for a landing on the first fairway. The shuttles and the program they represent have been good to FLORIDA TODAY. For one thing, having space as a coverage topic has enabled us to recruit some top-notch reporters and editors. These folks love space, and since we covered the subject like no one else, they came here to be part of it.
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COMPLETE STORIES
 
Discovery’s last flight sends it to Smithsonian
 
Brian Vastag - Washington Post
 
When you’re one of the world’s most famous museums taking possession of the world’s most famous spaceship, the first question is also the biggest: how to display it.
 
For Valerie Neal, curator of human spaceflight at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, the answer was simple: Present the space shuttle as if it had just landed, gear down, payload doors closed, underbelly scorched.
 
All that will be missing is the smell.
 
“There’s definitely a space smell when it lands,” said NASA’s Stephanie Stilson, who prepped Discovery for launch 11 times. “It’s kind of a burnt-metal smell, an ozone smell.”
 
On Thursday evening — if good weather holds this week — crews will park Discovery inside its retirement home, a hangar at the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles International Airport.
 
Workers will open the hangar’s back door, tow in the shuttle, and voila: instant display.
 
Even as crews close out Discovery’s cabin — installing flight seats, then battening the hatch — visitors can approach the shuttle and, if an idle worker is nearby, strike up a chat.
 
Since 2004, the Udvar-Hazy Center has housed NASA’s prototype shuttle, Enterprise. Pristine, shiny white, never launched, Enterprise is virginal.
 
Discovery, by contrast, is very well loved.
 
Her siding is singed, seared, burned and battered, badly in need of a wash. Her 20,000 black heat shield tiles are scorched, chipped and cracked; some look like they have been baked into briquettes. (Many of the tiles would have been replaced had Discovery flown again.)
 
“Discovery tells its own story by the way it looks,” said Neal, who has been planning this moment for 23 years, when she left her writing job with the still-new shuttle program at NASA to work at the museum.
 
More dinged and dusty old farm truck than sparkling racetrack Porsche, Discovery, in a word, looks flown.
 
And it should. With 39 flights in 27 years, Discovery was NASA’s hardest-working space shuttle. It played every conceivable orbital role: science platform, satellite launcher, telescope repair station, space station delivery truck.
 
When Challenger exploded in 1986, Discovery took America back to space. When Columbia disintegrated in 2003, Discovery was there again.
 
First female pilot. First Russian shuttle flier. The most passengers of any space vehicle — 252. The only shuttle to fly four times in a year (1985). The first and last shuttle to visit the Russian space station Mir. Thirteen flights — the most of any shuttle — to the international space station.
 
“It really did everything,” said Neal. “We consider it the champion of the shuttle fleet.”
 
Discovery will also tell its story with its sheer size, its delta-winged shadow an albatross to the hummingbirds resting nearby: the cramped Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules.
 
“The public always goes from the Apollo capsule to the shuttle and says, ‘Look at this jump. We’re flying an airliner to space and back,’” said Kevin Templin, NASA’s transition manager for the space shuttles, who has spent plenty of time with Enterprise in the Udvar-Hazy hangar.
 
As the oldest surviving shuttle, Discovery is now a “reference artifact,” said Neal, to be displayed in a “last flown” configuration as is the Smithsonian’s tradition with air- and spacecraft. Neal asked NASA to preserve as much of the shuttle as possible. While Discovery’s engines and certain other components have been removed, the crew cabin looks just as it did in flight; even the toilet was re-installed after a good scrub.
 
But the public will never get to see the space potty. While visitors will have clear views of Discovery from above and below, the interior is off-limits.
 
Space fans eager to peek inside will have two other options. They can pan around interior views by joystick at video kiosks, or they can enter a replica crew cabin at the National Air and Space Museum’s original location, on the Mall.
 
Some shuttle workers, queried while readying Discovery at the Kennedy Space Center in March, expressed disapproval at the Smithsonian’s plan to keep their charge buttoned up.
 
Senior technician Kurt McCaughey made a modest counterproposal. Why not remove one door on the 60-foot-long payload bay, install a walkway (he offered one from the space center, which no longer needs them), remove panels from the bottom of the bay, and let viewers saunter over the tangle of wires and cables exposed in the belly of the beast? “Now that would be a shuttle experience,” said McCaughey, understandably partial to rooting around in Discovery’s guts.
 
Neal’s response: Opening up the shuttle just isn’t feasible. The Smithsonian plans to display the spacecraft for decades, and the wear and tear of tromping visitors would quickly take its toll. “We have the mandate to preserve this for all posterity,” Neal said, noting that visitors drop pennies into and stick chewing gum onto the walkthrough Skylab space station replica on display at the Mall location.
 
As the museum of record for many American icons — Kermit the Frog, the Star-Spangled Banner, John Glenn’s Mercury capsule — the Smithsonian was a natural retirement home for Discovery. When NASA announced the final resting places for the four space shuttles last year, jilted museum staff and politicians from Seattle, Houston, Cleveland and elsewhere screeched that one or another retirement locale — New York, Los Angeles or the Kennedy Space Center, take your pick — was variously unworthy of a shuttle.
 
No one made a peep about the Smithsonian landing Discovery.
 
In the end, Enterprise became destined for Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in Manhattan; that flight is scheduled for April 23. Endeavour will go to the California Science Center in Los Angeles later this year, and Atlantis will be displayed with payload doors open as if in orbit at a new exhibit at Kennedy Space Center slated to open next year.
 
The Smithsonian is getting a good deal, too: Free. Free shuttle, free delivery. NASA calculated a delivery fee of $11 million, but the intragovernment transfer of funds “just got too complicated,” said Neal. So NASA waived the charge.
 
Whatever the price, Neal is at turns ecstatic and sad. Ecstatic to curate such a historically weighty artifact; sad that the shuttle program, whose career has so closely paralleled her own, is over.
 
Namesake of exploration vessels of old, Discovery enters a second life destined not to soar, but to inspire.
 
“It has carried our aspirations and dreams in space for almost 30 years,” said Neal, who is hoping the craft boosts the Udvar-Hazy visitor count above last year’s 1.2 million. “Now it belongs to the world.”
 
Discovery rolls to the runway for retirement ride
 
Justin Ray - SpaceflightNow.com
 

 
In the predawn darkness Saturday, the shuttle Discovery moved ever closer to leaving her home port forever as remaining technicians towed the decommissioned spaceplane to the runway ramp for mounting atop the 747 carrier jet.
 
Emerging from a storage bay on the northwestern side of the Vehicle Assembly Building at 5 a.m. EDT, the orbiter passed the former mission preparation hangars, crossed State Road 3 and followed the concrete towway to the Shuttle Landing Facility apron, arriving at the Mate-Demate Device at 7 a.m. EDT.
 
Having survived the massive layoffs and workforce reductions following the shuttle program's shutdown, a handful of ground specialists went to work getting the four-point lifting structure hooked up to Discovery for the ascent off the ground, retraction of the landing gear and pulling the 747 underneath the spacecraft.
 
High winds, however, stalled the activities and forced NASA to postpone the hoisting operation until 5 a.m. EDT Sunday. The delay should not impact the planned Tuesday ferryflight, officials said.
 
One of the escorts walking alongside Discovery on the look out for hazards during the early morning roll was Alan Shinault, a senior aerospace technician with United Space Alliance and 25-year veteran of the shuttle program.
 
"Discovery was the first one I worked on when I started here, first orbiter I saw and walked under. It's going to be pretty sad," Shinault said of Tuesday's departure. "We've prepared ourselves for this. We have two left, then it's really going to hit when the last one goes."
 
In the past year, Discovery's toxic hypergolic plumbing and components used for maneuvering the ship in space have been removed to safe those systems for the public. A cleaned thruster nose piece and twin tail pods have been installed on Discovery, as well as three replica main engines.
 
"Things we used to pride ourselves all these years trying to protect, being really careful working with this or working with that, now we're just cutting wires and taking them apart. It's sad. They only flew one-third of their lives," said Shinault.
 
The Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, originally built in 1970 by Boeing and then sold by American Airlines to NASA in 1974, is modified to haul the spaceplanes. Its insides largely are removed to save weight and three support struts protrude from the upper surface for attaching the shuttles. Now, this jumbo jet's career that has spanned the entire shuttle era will ferry the orbiters to their final destinations.
 
Known as NASA 905, the aircraft is scheduled for takeoff Tuesday at 7 a.m. EDT on the non-stop trek to Dulles International Airport for delivery of Discovery to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Northern Virginia.
 
A makeshift dual-crane contraption will be used to remove the shuttle on Tuesday and Wednesday in preparation for a ceremonial entrance into the museum next Thursday.
 
"It's mobile, easy to take apart and move around. We've got it up there and people in place putting it together. They have to drill some holes in the tarmac for cable reels and wind restraints to keep the thing from rocking," said Mark Linthicum, a USA technician headed to Dulles for demating Discovery and attaching Enterprise to the 747.
 
Nearly 200 holes had to be drilled into the surface to secure the structure in place before grabbing ahold of the shuttle.
 
"It is this real thick, heavy-duty concrete. We had a bunch of speciality drills and tools they drug up there. They are probably cussing us because they had to do all that hole-drilling before we get there," said Linthicum.
 
Two cranes, one in the rear and one in the front, will work in tandem to remove the 166,000-pound Discovery orbiter.
 
"It is going to pick it straight up, we'll pull the 747 out from underneath it, lower it down to about 10-12 feet off the ground, we'll hook up hydraulics and pop the gear down, demate the hydraulics, lower the vehicle the rest of the way to weight-on-wheels, take the aft part of the sling off, bring the nose down (to the ground), take the nose sling off and get ready to tow," said Linthicum, a shuttle worker since 1991.
 
The contraption has been used in the past for shuttle ferryflights, albeit many years ago. The most recent operation was Enterprise's shipment to Dulles in 1985.
 
"It's going to be an all-new learning experience for us. None of those guys are still around anymore," Linthicum said.
 
About a dozen technicians will be among a team of over 30 people, including engineers and managers, going to Dulles for the operations. Many of workers now consider themselves to be a "jack of all trades" and not certain task specialists anymore with current workforce so small.
 
"It's a pretty tight timeline," Linthicum says of removing Discovery from the 747 in preparation for a public parade to the Smithsonian next Thursday.
 
"Hopefully we'll get a good start, set the table," Linthicum said of the game plan for arrival day Tuesday at Dulles. "We'll work till we get to a safe stopping point, then break and come back in the next day and finish it up."
 
After Discovery is plucked off the jetliner, sistership Enterprise will be brought to the so-called Apron W on the west side of the airport for its attachment to the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.
 
The prototype shuttle, which has been on display at that Smithsonian annex for a decade and located at Dulles even longer, will be hoisted atop the 747 and then depart on April 23 bound for New York City.
 
"Basically in reverse, we'll hook the sling up, raise the nose off the ground, raise the whole vehicle up, hook up hydraulics, we'll suck up the gear," said Linthicum.
 
Once Enterprise is bolted in place, the lifting equipment will be packed up like "a traveling roadshow" and head for the New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport where the shuttle is destined.
 
But demating Enterprise won't be as quick after the New York City landing as Discovery's Dulles touchdown. The pre-op work of setting up the contraption will take a while to complete.
 
"They already have the area laid out. But we still have to go in and do the final measurements and markings, then start drilling holes," said Linthicum.
 
"We'll build it all back up, get all the wind restraints anchored. Once we get Enterprise on the ground there, there is another company coming in to be in charge of moving it," Linthicum said of USA's responsibilities ending after the 747 removal.
 
Enterprise will be parked at JFK until a summertime barge ride to take the shuttle to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, a vintage aircraft carrier located at Pier 86 on the Hudson River.
 
After those two orbiter deliveries are finished in the coming weeks, NASA 905 also has one final ferryflight planned this September to take Endeavour to Los Angeles before the aircraft is retired from service.
 
Both Shinault and Linthicum said they hope to remain part of the shuttle team until the bitter end this fall.
 
‘What a phenomenal vehicle’: Discovery’s pilots recall amazing rides
 
Brian Vastag - Washington Post
 
Space shuttle Discovery flew the most missions of NASA’s five orbiters, 39. But on her inaugural mission, she balked.
 
It was June 25, 1984. Michael Coats, now director of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, was the pilot. As the countdown hit “five,” the first of Discovery’s three main engines flared, then the second. The shuttle rocked forward and back, pulling at the eight big bolts holding her to the launchpad — a motion known as the “twang.”
 
The third engine never lit.
 
“As we were twanging, suddenly it got very quiet,” said Coats, whose adrenaline was pumping; this was the Navy flier’s first space launch, too. “We could hear seagulls screaming outside. We rocked back and forth for a second. As we’re digesting the fact we’re not going, the first comment came from Steve Hawley sitting behind us. He said, ‘I thought we’d be a lot higher when the engines cut off.’”
 
After technicians replaced the faulty engine, Discovery finally took wing on Aug. 30, spending the first seven of her eventual 365 days in space.
 
Robert Cabana piloted Discovery twice, in 1990 and 1992. Now director of Kennedy Space Center, he recalled the eery tension of riding the elevator up to the cockpit at 4 a.m. for his first launch.
 
“You look at this vehicle and it’s venting and it’s creaking and it’s like it’s alive, like it’s breathing,” he said. “And you just cannot believe you’re going to be inside there blasting off in three hours.”
 
That time, Discovery launched on schedule.
 
“That first launch, nothing can prepare you for that. It’s shaking and vibrating. All those pops and cackles you hear on TV? You hear that in the cockpit, too.”
 
Eight-and-half minutes later, the rumbling ride ends.
 
“It’s like you’re in a freight train that’s gotten rear-ended,” said Cabana. “It feels like you come to a stop, but you’ve just stopped accelerating and you’re going 17,500 miles per hour. It’s just this amazing ride uphill, this sense of speed and acceleration. What a phenomenal vehicle. Once you get off the [solid rocket boosters], it’s just as smooth as can be on the three main engines. It’s like electric drive. It’s amazing.”
 
Space shuttle Discovery takes the ground crew’s hearts with it
 
Brian Vastag - Washington Post
 
Travis Thompson remembers the first job he did inside the space shuttle, small as it was. He painted bits of the hardware on an audio panel on the mid-deck, the shuttle’s living quarters. It was 1979. The first launch was two years away. Thompson was 19.
 
The kid in Calfornia who had watched space launches, who had fed on TV footage of giant rockets roaring toward the moon, was inside a spaceship.
 
Thirty-three years later, Thompson welcomed a visitor to the retired space shuttle Discovery with those same words: “You’re inside a spaceship.”
 
Thompson was at ease on the mid-deck floor, back against the forward bulkhead, legs out, ankles crossed. He was escorting a photographer — a perfect excuse to hang out here pretty much all day.
 
It was this January, three months before Discovery was scheduled to fly away for good, and Thompson was approaching the end of a long career. He has “turned wrenches” in the engine compartment, the payload bay, the cabin. For 27 years, he was a launchpad guy on the close-out crew that strapped in astronauts and sealed the hatch. He led that crew for a decade, a big numeral “1” on the back of his white jumpsuit.
 
And he had been on Discovery’s flight deck when two workers yanked at electrical lines, ripped out wires to get the ship ready for display at the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.
 
Thompson left.
 
“I felt like someone was slapping my daughter right in front of me,” he said. “Like someone was kicking my grandmother.”
 
After every launch he closed out, Thompson pulled the patch from the breast of his suit and tossed it into a shoebox. He counted 70 in the box in his closet. There’s a second box somewhere, maybe at his mom’s house, with the rest; he doesn’t know how many. “That’s like counting your money at the table,” he said.
 
Twice Thompson’s quick actions avoided launchpad scrubs, saving taxpayers a million or so dollars in overtime and fuel. He once zipped down to his truck, grabbed a gasket, rode up to the shuttle door, and resealed the hatch in 10 minutes, with not too many more to spare.
 
When Discovery rolls into Udvar-Hazy this week, the moment will mark the end of two careers: that of NASA’s hardest-working spaceship, and that of Travis Thompson.
 
He represents the thousands of technicians and engineers who kept the shuttles flying, who babied the machines, rooted around in their guts, hand-glued 20,000 ceramic tiles to their bellies, made them safe to soar.
 
Discovery will now rest in a museum, inanimate. But the craft itself will serve as a potent reminder of the thousands of people who animated the machine, made it fly. The exploits of Discovery’s astronauts have been well told, but the stories of the workers — their sacrifices, their heroics — have largely been shielded from view.
 
These workers who kept Discovery aloft couldn’t be more American if you called central casting. They work for a company called USA, United Space Alliance. They’re not civil servants — they’re contractors. And there aren’t many left on the hangar floor.
 
People like Buddy McKenzie, shift manager for shuttle retirement. His dad was a launchpad pipefitter for the Apollo missions. As McKenzie stood under Discovery’s nose narrating a window’s removal, his words faltered. The Vietnam veteran excused himself, then apologized.
 
When he came back, McKenzie pointed inside the front wheel well. It’s spotless in there, shiny. “We do take care of them,” he said.
 
People like Vicky Turner, who spent 32 years here, most in the tile shop. As Discovery was towed out of the hangar for the last time, she unraveled a 6-by-8-foot quilt sewn from 135 mission patches — all of them. An embroidered white Discovery sat in the middle, the four other shuttles anchoring the corners. Turner wore a gray polo shirt that read, “Mission accomplished: 1981–2011.”
 
“I’m trying to hold back tears,” she said as Discovery eased by. “It’s going to a good place.” Turner’s quilt is also going to the Smithsonian.
 
People like Tim Keyser, who spent 24 years in the hangar.
 
“I still rush into work every morning,” Keyser said hours after Discovery had been parked in a corner of NASA’s vast Vehicle Assembly Building one final time. “These guys are going to have to kick me out of here.”
 
It will be decades before the world sees another spacecraft as capable and versatile, Keyser said. NASA has a spacecraft in development, Orion, but “they can keep it,” he said. It strongly resembles the 1960s Apollo capsules — it splashes down in the ocean, inelegantly, with parachutes. It can carry little cargo up and none down.
 
It’s not a spaceplane. It’s not the shuttle.
 
An Orion mock-up sits not 10 yards from Keyser as he says this.
 
“I like to think of Discovery as my bird, but it’s really [the workers’] bird,” said Discovery’s first pilot, Michael Coats, now director of the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
 
Keeping an American icon flying isn’t a job; it’s duty. It’s life or death.
 
The workers are quick to point out that the orbiters – the shuttles themselves – never failed. Only twice did a shuttle engine conk out early. Both times the spaceship safely limped into orbit anyway.
 
A leaky rocket booster and cold weather destroyed Challenger in 1986. In 2003, foam from the external fuel tank proved fatal to Columbia. Investigations found that NASA management failed to heed warnings in both tragedies. Fourteen astronauts died.
 
Workers perished on duty, too.
 
In March 1981, as Columbia sat upright for the program’s inaugural flight, three technicians got trapped in the aft compartment as nitrogen gas was pumped in. John Bjornstad died at the scene from anoxia. Forrest Cole and Nick Mullon died later.
 
“They were my friends,” said Thompson. They came in together, young and eager to send America back into space after a six-year hiatus.
 
On March 14, 2011, another technician died on the launchpad. As Endeavour sat stacked for its final flight, James Vanover, 53, rode high on the tower ahead of his work team. Security cameras recorded Vanover “deliberately sliding off the platform and falling” 130 feet, according to the Brevard County medical examiner’s report. It continued, “Investigation revealed that [Vanover] had been depressed lately and had been drinking heavily.”
 
NASA and USA brought in counselors. “There were no other incidents,” said a NASA official, who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.
 
But Thompson said the past year has been rough. “A lot of people have paid also by marriages and divorces, the long hours, just all kinds of stuff,” he said.
 
Thompson is on the phone. It is April 9, his last Monday.
 
He thought his job was safe. In February, his manager said so: Thompson would be kept on to help Boeing develop its new space capsule.
 
Two days later, that same manager told Thompson that April 13 would be the end, a month short of 34 years.
 
“I’m 53 — I need to work 10 more years,” he said. “So I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
 
For weeks, he’s been “making a fuss” as others departed; parties, little space shuttles, photos signed by the remaining workers finishing up their last closeout mission.
 
He’s not getting any of that.
 
“I sacrificed a lot and here I won’t even get a picture. I’m kind of an outcast here because I’m a pad guy and these are OPF guys,” he said, using the acronym for the hangar.
 
Last Tuesday , he drove out of the space center and that was that.
 
He aimed his truck north, crew suit and hat packed beside him for donation to the Smithsonian. Curator Valerie Neal is deciding whether to display the uniform at the National Air and Space Museum on the Mall or at Udvar-Hazy.
 
Travis Thompson will get to watch the bird land one more time, even if it is on the back of a 747.
 
He spent his final workweeks inside the two remaining shuttles, finding reasons to turn wrenches.
 
“I still get the same feeling today I got back then. It’s just, ‘Hell, this is a spaceship,’?” he said. “How many boys get to do that?”
 
Space Shuttle Discovery Mounted Atop Jumbo Jet for Ride to Smithsonian
 
Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com
 
NASA mounted space shuttle Discovery on a jumbo jet Sunday (April 15), in preparation for the retired orbiter's delivery to the Smithsonian. The paired air- and spacecraft are expected to depart Florida for Washington, D.C., on Tuesday morning (April 17), weather permitting.
 
Discovery's mating to the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), NASA's modified Boeing 747 jetliner, came a day later than the space agency had planned. On Saturday, wind gusts at the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility set the 167,000 pound (75,300 kilogram) Discovery swaying under its lift sling, posing a risk that it could impact the Mate Demate Device (MDD), the gantry-like steel structure used to hoist the shuttle onto the jetliner.
 
Workers reconvened at 5 a.m. EDT (0900 GMT) on Sunday, to finish retracting the shuttle's landing gear. They then raised the orbiter 60 feet (18 meters) off the ground so that the carrier aircraft could be positioned underneath. Discovery was then lowered onto the jumbo jet's three protruding attach points to achieve a "soft" mating.
 
Work continued throughout the day Sunday to secure, or "hard" mate, Discovery to the 747, before removing the hoist sling and backing the paired vehicles out of the MDD on Monday morning.
 
Emotional ending
 
"Assuming the weather is good, we'll back out [of the Mate-Demate Device] in the morning, That will give a whole day of opportunity for the media, the public, and for our employees to come out and get a good view of Discovery's last time on top of a 747 here at Kennedy Space Center," said Stephanie Stilson, flow director for the transition and retirement for the space shuttle orbiters.
 
Among the space program workers expected to come out and view Discovery on Monday are the members of its 39th and final spaceflight, the six astronauts who flew the STS-133 mission in March 2011.
 
According to Stilson, who also led the ground processing for Discovery's last 11 missions, seeing it be readied for one last ferry flight was eliciting mixed feelings.
 
"It's hard not to be happy, because we have achieved another one of our goals," Stilson told collectSPACE.com. "That is how we look at things. We have a job to do, and that is to get Discovery to the Smithsonian. So this is the next step to get there. So we're very happy because everything has gone well to get to this point."
 
"But then, when I start to think about the fact that this is last time to do this with Discovery, it is sad," she continued. "It is not something that we want to have as a last opportunity. But that's part of the job, that is where we are with the program and the way things are going."
 
"So I'm just going to enjoy it, be happy and allow myself to really see the team at their best. Even if this is one of the last times we do it, at least they're doing it to the best of their ability, very professional, very dedicated and who can't be happy about that? It's a great experience," Stilson said.
 
Final ferry flight
 
Discovery's mating with the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft marked a final reunion for the space shuttle and jumbo jet. The same aircraft was used to first deliver Discovery to the Kennedy Space Center on Nov. 9, 1983.
 
In the three decades since, Discovery was paired with this Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, NASA 905, for 14 out of its 18 ferry flights.
 
"This is something we have done many times before," said Stilson. "We have the same exact Mate-Demate Device out in California at the Dryden Flight Research Center so if we landed out west, we would go through the same process to get the orbiter that landed out there back home to Kennedy. And then, when we used to do maintenance periods out in California, we would load up from here [in Florida] and then ferry out to Palmdale."
 
Two large cranes will take the place of the Mate-Demate Device when the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft arrives with Discovery at Washington Dulles International Airport on Tuesday (April 17).
 
After a day spent offloading the orbiter, NASA and the Smithsonian will hold an arrival ceremony on Thursday (April 19) when Discovery will be rolled over to the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, located adjacent to the airport.
 
Discover some facts about Discovery
 
Washington Post
 
Look, up in the sky. It’s a bird; it’s a plane; it’s a space shuttle!
 
Tuesday morning, if the weather is good, the space shuttle Discovery will fly piggyback on a 747 jet over parts of the Washington area on its way to landing about 10:40 a.m. at Dulles International Airport. Then on Thursday, the shuttle will be moved to the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center, where it will be on display for everyone to see.
 
If you’re thinking “but I’ve already seen a shuttle at the museum,” you’d be right. But that is the shuttle Enterprise, which never actually flew in space. Discovery went on lots of fascinating and historic missions.
 
Here are just a few facts about Discovery that you can use to amaze your siblings, classmates, parents and teachers.
 
Shuttle Discovery flew its first mission on August 30, 1984, and landed after its last mission on March 9, 2011.
 
It flew 39 missions and spent a total of one year (365 days) in space.
 
Discovery took the Hubble Space Telescope, which is about the size of a school bus, into space.
 
?It got its name from four British exploring ships, all named Discovery.
 
Discovery was the shuttle that was launched after the tragic disasters involving the shuttle Challenger in 1986 and the Columbia in 2003. It earned the nickname the “Return to Flight” orbiter.
 
Discovery carried former astronaut John Glenn, who was the first American to orbit Earth in 1962, back into space in 1998. At the time, Glenn was 77 years old, making him the oldest person in space.
 
Discovery carried a Buzz Lightyear toy into space in 2008. Buzz spent 468 days on the international space station before returning to Earth aboard Discovery in 2009. (Last month, Buzz found a new home at the Air and Space Museum on the Mall as part of the popular-culture collection.)
 
The only president to attend a shuttle launch was Bill Clinton. He watched Discovery blast into space in October 1998.
 
Space shuttle Discovery to make visible flyover before it's mothballed
 
Brian Vastag - Washington Post
 
After 39 trips to space, NASA's oldest surviving shuttle is making one more flight, to its retirement home, the Smithsonian's cavernous Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles International Airport. Before the shuttle lands, NASA plans to show off the retired space truck in a spectacular flyover visible to much of the region.
 
Weather permitting, Discovery and its carrier 747 will depart Kennedy Space Center in Florida around 7 a.m. on Tuesday and arrive in the Washington area around 10 a.m. for a 40-minute aerial tour.
 
NASA and National Air and Space Museum officials refused to release full details of the flight path, citing security concerns. One NASA official, requesting anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record, acknowledged that keeping the flight path secret would diminish the number of viewers who duck outside for the historic sight.
 
At the same time, the museum mounted a Twitter campaign to encourage area residents to spot the shuttle and Tweet photos of it with the hashtag .spottheshuttle. To join in, viewers must be willing and able to hang around outside for nearly an hour midmorning.
 
That's because the 747 will be zooming by very quickly.
 
NASA did release a list of locations the plane was scheduled to fly near or over, including much of the Potomac River in the District, Ronald Reagan National Airport, National Harbor, the U.S. Capitol, the Mall, Andrews Air Force Base and much of the Capital Beltway on the Maryland side.
 
Except for a few swoops, the 747 will cruise at 1,500 feet, high enough so that it isn't looming like a menace.
 
NASA's experienced flight crew may cancel or modify the extraordinary fly-around at any time. Rain or wind could stop the show, sending the behemoth duo to an early landing.
 
The parking lot at the Udvar-Hazy Center will open at 8 a.m. for "guaranteed viewing," said Valerie Neal, the National Air and Space Museum curator who procured Discovery. Even if the flyover is canceled, the plane does, after all, have to land.
 
After NASA workers hoist Discovery off its carrier 747, they'll tow the shuttle to the Udvar-Hazy Center for an all-day celebration on Thursday. An 11 a.m. public ceremony will feature 14 of Discovery's living commanders, former astronaut and Ohio Sen. John Glenn, and music by the U.S. Marine Drum and Bugle Corps.
 
After the ceremony, visitors can see Discovery and the Smithsonian's current shuttle, the prototype Enterprise, nose-to-nose outside the museum until 5:30 p.m., when Discovery will be rolled into its retirement home, the museum's James S. McDonnell Space Hangar.
 
Special events and displays will continue inside and outside the museum through Sunday, keeping space fans occupied with a solar telescope; a mock-up of NASA's next crewed spacecraft, the Orion capsule; models of the international space station and NASA's newest Mars rover; and a pop-up planetarium with shows narrated by Big Bird and Elmo.
 
Discovery space shuttle: Where to watch the D.C. flyover
 
Brian Vastag - Washington Post
 
On Tuesday morning, if the weather’s clear, well-placed Washingtonians might hear a rumble, maybe even a roar.
 
Look up.
 
It’s a spaceship winging over Washington, space shuttle Discovery riding piggyback on a silver 747.
 
After 39 trips to space, NASA’s oldest surviving shuttle is making one more flight, to its retirement home, the Smithsonian’s cavernous Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles International Airport. Before landing, NASA plans to show off the retired space truck in a spectacular flyover visible to much of the region.
 
Weather permitting, Discovery and its carrier 747 will depart Kennedy Space Center in Florida around 7 a.m. and arrive in the Washington area around 10 a.m. for a 40-minute aerial tour.
 
NASA and National Air and Space Museum officials refused to release full details of the flight path, citing security concerns. One NASA official, requesting anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record, acknowledged that keeping the flight path secret would diminish the number of viewers who duck outside for the historic sight.
 
At the same time, the museum mounted a Twitter campaign to encourage area residents to spot the shuttle and Tweet photos of it with the hashtag #spottheshuttle. To play, viewers must be willing and able to hang around outside for nearly an hour midmorning.
 
That’s because the 747 will be zooming by very quickly.
 
NASA did release a list of locations the plane was scheduled to fly near or over, including much of the Potomac River in the District, Ronald Reagan National Airport, National Harbor, the U.S. Capitol, the Mall, Andrews Air Force Base and much of the Capital Beltway on the Maryland side.
 
Views from atop downtown buildings should be spectacular.
 
Except for a few swoops, the 747 will cruise at 1,500 feet, high enough so that it isn’t looming like a menace.
 
Anyone in Washington in November 1985 may remember a similar flyover, when NASA showed off the prototype space shuttle Enterprise before it landed at Dulles and the Smithsonian took possession.
 
NASA’s experienced flight crew may cancel or modify the extraordinary fly-around at any time. Rain or wind could stop the show, sending the behemoth duo to an early landing.
 
The parking lot at the Udvar-Hazy Center will open at 8 a.m. for “guaranteed viewing,” said Valerie Neal, the National Air and Space Museum curator who procured Discovery. Even if the flyover is canceled, the plane does, after all, have to land.
 
Best Places to Watch:
 
District of Columbia
 
·         The Mall, including Memorial Bridge, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument and the east end.
 
·         Hains Point at East Potomac Park, south of Jefferson Memorial and 14th Street Bridge.
 
·         Southwest Waterfront Park.
 
Virginia
 
·         Long Bridge Park, 475 Long Bridge Dr., Arlington.
 
·         Old Town Alexandria waterfront.
 
·         Gravelly Point, just off George Washington Parkway, near National Airport.
 
Maryland
 
·         National Harbor, just off the Woodrow Wilson Bridge in Prince George’s County.
 
Details are available online at www.airandspace.si.edu/collections/discovery/
 
Delivering the space shuttles is tougher than you think
 
Richard Simon - Chicago Tribune
 
When you need to move a nearly 175,000-pound space shuttle with a 78-foot wingspan, who you gonna call?
 
NASA, of course. But also companies that own big cranes. In New York, call a barge owner. And in Los Angeles, traffic engineers and the LAPD.
 
Delivering retired orbiters to their final display sites in Los Angeles, New York, the Washington, D.C., area and Florida’s Kennedy Space Center is presenting special challenges to the agency that put men on the moon.
 
Delivery crews have dusted off an apparatus last used in the 1980s for transporting the shuttle. They have rehearsed the delicate task of unloading the orbiter from atop a Boeing 747. And they have surveyed Los Angeles streets to ensure they can withstand the spacecraft’s weight.
 
The challenges will come into focus next week with the delivery of the first shuttle -- Discovery -- to its new home, the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum annex in northern Virginia after a rare fly-over in the Washington area atop a modified Boeing 747.
 
Some 20 truckloads of equipment needed to unload the shuttle from the plane had to be hauled from Kennedy Space Center to Dulles International Airport. Two large cranes were brought in as well.
 
"They’ve got X marks the spot out at Dulles so they know exactly where the cranes have to be situated," Valerie Neal, space shuttle curator at the National Air and Space Museum, said in an interview.
 
NASA had to test equipment last used in 1985 when the Enterprise test shuttle was delivered to the Smithsonian.
 
"There are some things that have been sitting in boxes since 1985," Stephanie Stilson, who is overseeing the shuttle delivery for NASA, told the Los Angeles Times. She noted that crews staged a dry run testing the equipment "three times" to ensure it would work.
 
Delivery of the shuttle Endeavour to Los Angeles in September or October presents more of a logistical challenge.
 
The orbiter, which has traveled about 123 million miles, will need to go another 12 miles or so through city streets from Los Angeles International Airport to the California Science Center in Exposition Park near downtown.
 
Designed to travel up to 17,500 mph in space, the shuttle is likely to poke along at 1 mph, as if it were on the Santa Monica Freeway.
 
Shuttles also will be delivered to New York -- via barge from John F. Kennedy International Airport to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum -- this summer and to the Kennedy Space Center visitor complex in Florida late this year or early next year.
 
Officials hope the deliveries will go smoother than the political turbulence encountered when NASA awarded the shuttles to cities other than Houston, home of mission control. At the time, a headline in the Houston Chronicle read, "One Giant Snub for Houston."
 
Splashy ceremonies are planned to welcome the shuttles.
 
After the 747 carrying Discovery flies over the Washington area, at about 1,500 feet, on Tuesday, the Smithsonian ceremony April 19 will feature Discovery crew members and space pioneer John Glenn, who returned to space in 1998 aboard the Discovery at age 77.
 
Los Angeles officials considered moving the shuttle at night to reduce traffic disruptions. But plans now call for moving the orbiter in the day, probably on a weekend, so the public can see it.
 
"Never before and never again will a space shuttle move through a major urban area," Jeffrey N. Rudolph, the science center’s president, said in an interview. "Even if we did it at midnight, people are going to come out in large numbers."
 
A final route has yet to be selected.
 
The science center has already paid $14.2 million to NASA for preparation and delivery costs.
 
Los Angeles officials have secured the "overland transporter" used to ferry shuttles in the 1980s from their Palmdale assembly site to Edwards Air Force Base. Officials also are videotaping a proposed route to see what obstacles, such as traffic lights and utility poles, would need to be moved to accommodate the wide load.
 
Discovery will be exhibited at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va., "in landing configuration" with the crew cabin and payload bay door closed. Visitors won’t be able to venture inside Discovery, but Neal said they would be able to experience the interior through "virtual reality kiosks."
 
The California Science Center initially plans to display the shuttle horizontally but eventually will mount it vertically, as if for launch. The Kennedy Space Center plans to display Atlantis in "orbital configuration with payload bay doors open."
 
Now boarding: Inside NASA's Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft
 
Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com
 
Space shuttle Discovery's ride to retirement, NASA's modified Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), has come a long way since it first took to the air in the 1970s as an American Airlines passenger jumbo jet.
 
Now an iconic craft in its own right with more than 800 flights in service to NASA, the original of two SCAs will embark on the first of its final ferry flights next week. Known as NASA 905, referring to its tail number, the 747 will deliver space shuttle Discovery to Washington, D.C. on April 17 for public display by the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.
 
That ferry flight will be followed a week later by another, carrying the jet's original passenger, the test orbiter Enterprise, to New York for the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. Finally, this fall, NASA 905 will bring shuttle Endeavour to Los Angeles for the spacecraft's exhibition at the California Science Center.
 
"This is a series of deliveries starting now all the way through September, and they are a little bit bittersweet because we've been doing this for a while," SCA captain Jeff Moultrie said. "We get to fly the airplane every three weeks and that's going away. That, combined with the fact that the shuttle program itself is going away — and [the SCA] was a big part of it — this is sort of special to us."
 
On Wednesday (April 11), NASA provided the media — including collectSPACE — the opportunity to tour NASA 905 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida before Discovery was mated with the aircraft.
 
Purchased by NASA from the airline in 1974 for $15,601,192.19, NASA 905 was modified by Boeing to first carry the prototype Enterprise for approach and landing tests and then later to ferry the space-worthy orbiters on transcontinental flights between their landing and launch sites.
 
Three struts protruding from the top of the jet's fuselage were added to mount the shuttle and two vertical stabilizers were installed on its tail to steady the air- and space-craft combo in flight.
 
All of the jet's interior furnishings and equipment that was located to the rear of its forward doors were removed and additional instrumentation was added to enable the crew to be able to monitor the electrical loads while the aircraft was ferrying a shuttle.
 
The final exterior traces of its American Airlines' history — its red, blue and silver livery — were replaced in 1983 when NASA repainted the jet to its current white and blue before flying it to the Paris Air Show in France.
 
Inside, the jet still retains some of its original first class furnishings, its carpeting, and its commode for the flight crew. The cockpit is still equipped with its original analog displays and dials as well.
 
But it is not the SCA's appearance that establishes and reemphasizes its history — it's the jet's piggyback passengers, and in particular the original, Enterprise.
 
"Once I see it up there, that is going to make me go, 'Wow, this is the first SCA, this is the first shuttle on top of a 747,'" first officer Bill Rieke told collectSPACE. That is when its history is going to hit me. We can talk about it a lot but until you see it, until you go in and go 'Alright, this is it, here we go' — that's going to be it."
 
Regardless if it is Enterprise, Endeavour, or Discovery, the sight of the 122-foot (38-meter) long orbiter sitting atop the 231-foot (70-meter) Shuttle Carrier Aircraft will be an historic sight for those looking up from the ground. But for the few who are able to look down from the shuttles' former realm, Earth orbit, the jumbo jet will unfortunately be too small to see.
 
"At 400 kilometers [248 miles], there is actually relatively little opportunity to see anything even as large as the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft with Discovery mated to it," Expedition 30 commander Dan Burbank said from aboard the International Space Station on Wednesday (April 11). "We are able to see the evidence of ships and planes in the form of wakes and contrails if the lighting is just right but it is really difficult to get the kind of resolution to see much beyond that."
 
How NASA Moves Space Shuttles: The Ultimate Piggyback Ride
 
Clara Moskowitz - Space.com
 
NASA's space shuttles are gearing up to make their final voyages — this time flying piggyback a special Boeing 747 jet on the way to museum retirement homes.
 
The space shuttle Discovery, which flew its last mission in March 2011, has been undergoing prep for museum life at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Fla. If weather permits, on Tuesday, Discovery will fly atop a modified Boeing jet to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va., where it will spend the rest of its days.
 
After Discovery arrives at the Smithsonian, the museum's current orbiter on display, the prototype shuttle Enterprise, will be loaded onto the same carrier aircraft to be ferried to its new home: the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City.
 
The transportation of shuttles is a complicated affair, involving giant cranes and rejiggered Boeing jets. And in addition to a slew of complex equipment, the maneuver requires significant manpower.
 
"The team is just amazing, “Dorothy Rasco manager of Space Shuttle Program Transition and Retirement at Houston's Johnson Space Center, told SPACE.com.
 
"When you think of the pilot that will be flying the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, to the ferry manager, to coordinating with FAA and the different Air Force and military facilities between Florida, Washington, D.C. and then to New York," Rasco said. "We've had different meetings with airport operations at different airports to make sure the security is appropriate. We’ve had outreach and communications efforts that make up the non-technical side. And then you have the whole technical team that has just pulled together to choreograph it. It's going to be really great."
 
So exactly how do you take a 100-ton space shuttle and fly it on ferry hops across the country? Here's a look at how the whole process is done:
 
Step 1: Roll out to the runway
On Saturday (April 14), Discovery is set to roll out from the Vehicle Assembly Building, the 52-story building where it's gone through recent processing, to the Shuttle Landing Facility, the expansive runway where space shuttles touch down when they land at KSC.
 
Here, the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, the modified 747 jet that will carry it across the country, will be waiting.
 
Step 2: Lift up the orbiter
To load the shuttle onto the jet, NASA uses a giant gantry-like machine called the Mate-Demate device. This contraption uses two 100-foot steel towers with a massive lift beam in between them to hoist the orbiter off the ground.
 
Step 3: Attach the orbiter to the plane
Once Discovery is lifted in the air by the Mate-Demate device, the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft will roll beneath it, positioning itself under the belly of the orbiter, which can then be lowered down and attached via three struts protruding from the Boeing's fuselage.
 
Step 4: Fly to destination
The linked vehicles will then take off the runway much like a normal airliner and fly up the Eastern seaboard to the Udvar-Hazy Center, a hangar-turned-museum near the Dulles International Airport. Before they land at the airport, however, the two are scheduled to take a twirl roughly 1,500 feet above major landmarks in Washington, D.C., so people on the ground can welcome Discovery.
 
Step 5: Detach orbiter
At the Dulles airport, the attachment process will be performed in reverse. Discovery will be demated from its ride and lifted into the air by a pair of giant cranes (there's no Mate-Demate gantry here). Then the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft will back out from beneath it.
 
Step 6: Lower orbiter to the ground
Once the jet is out of the way, the huge cranes will lower Discovery near the ground. Before settling it there, Discovery's landing gear wheels will be extended out from its underside, so it can touch down on the ground with them.
 
Step 7: Display in museum
From the airport, Discovery will roll on its wheels the short way to the adjacent Udvar-Hazy Center facility, where it will be installed in a place of honor.
 
Editor's Note: If you snap a photo of Discovery flying over Washington on its way to the Smithsonian, and would like to share it with SPACE.com for a possible story or gallery, please contact managing editor Tariq Malik at tmalik-at-space.com.
 
Bidding farewell to shuttle Discovery
Newspaper's space coverage lures top-notch reporters from afar
 
Bob Stover - Florida Today (Commentary)
 
(Stover is executive editor of Florida Today and has worked at the newspaper since 1992)
 
This week we say goodbye to shuttle Discovery. It will parade down the beaches Tuesday morning on the back of a 747 before departing for its new home in the Smithsonian.
 
The first time I saw a shuttle piggybacked in this way was in the mid-’90s while on a golf driving range on Lake Washington Road, practicing my slice, which seemed to get better with every stroke. At one point, I raised my head and was confronted with a winged monster sailing right over my head. It was so low, it looked like it was heading for a landing on the first fairway.
 
The shuttles and the program they represent have been good to FLORIDA TODAY. For one thing, having space as a coverage topic has enabled us to recruit some top-notch reporters and editors. These folks love space, and since we covered the subject like no one else, they came here to be part of it.
 
Todd Halvorson, our senior space reporter who has covered the shuttle for more than 25 years, is from Ohio. James Dean, who will be going to Washington this week to cover the transfer of Discovery, joined us after graduate school at Columbia University in New York. John Kelly, former space editor and now our local editor, came from the Associated Press in Illinois. I can think of another half-dozen space reporters who worked here during the past 20 years who came from far away.
 
But Mara Bellaby, our current space editor, came farther than any of them, and she has as much passion for space as any of them. She is a native of New York, but we recruited and hired Mara while she was working for the AP in the Ukraine. Before that, she worked in Moscow and covered several Soyuz launches. She also covered landings, which in some ways, she said, were more fun: “flying in helicopters over the steppe, chasing the Soyuz to its landing spot. Sometimes very surprised Kazakh farmers turned up with camels to see the crews lifted gingerly out of the craft.”
 
Mara is a serious, focused person, so I was a little surprised last week when she bounded into my office and seemed to be as high as a kite. And why not? She had just sat in the cockpit of Endeavour. What a thrill for a space nut.
 
I was so impressed I followed up later and asked why she was such a fan of space travel.
“Simple answer: I like to travel, and it really is the next big destination,” she responded. “As a child, I’d climb to the top of my playground set, and because our house sat on a hill, I could see pretty far into the distance, or so I thought. We lived in upstate New York, but I thought I could see all the way to the then-Soviet Union.
 
“I was a kid. I had no idea how big the planet really was. But it looked within reach, and I wanted to get there someday. I did.”
 
And she dreamed of going into space but said “sadly, I know I won’t. But others have, to a floating space lab and the moon. That’s very cool.”
 
She said when she sat in the Endeavour cockpit, she was making a connection with something that had actually been into space.
 
“I got to sit in the commander’s seat, right where Mark Kelly sat on Endeavour’s final mission.
 
“But best of all for me: looking behind the commander’s and pilot’s seats at the controls and the windows the crew used to guide the orbiter into space station docking.
 
“The windows were covered when I looked at them, but I have a good imagination.”
 
END
 

 

 


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