Shuttle Processing: Before flight activities rarely seen by the general public

Some "behind the scenes" photos of the Space Shuttle Discovery; this NASA presentation is titled:

Shuttle Processing: Before flight activities rarely seen by the general public

(warning: graphic-intensive thread - 47 images included!)

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Photo credits: NASA

What a great post! It' true a picture is worth a thousand words. Even with very little description I learned a lot from these pictures. Good job!

reply to post by leisuredrummer

Even with very little description I learned a lot from these pictures.

Thanks for the comments - I feel the same way about these pictures, in fact every time I find myself thinking dimly of the space program or that they should end NASA for being (at times) a bureaucratic mess, I look through these photos and realize what a special program we have in America.

I wonder if NASA really had access to time travel, stargates, mars bases etc, would they really go to all this trouble just to get a few miles into space.

Cool pictures, nice post, thanks.

I wonder if NASA really had access to time travel, stargates, mars bases etc, would they really go to all this trouble just to get a few miles into space.

One could say the same thing about the "Hanbau" Nazi saucers that allegedly Von Braun had knowledge of, or worked on - if that were even vaguely true, he wouldn't have put so much effort into rocketry and developing the Saturn V, he would have devoted himself to this saucer tech.

The Space Shuttle does have a precursor, the Dyna-Soar project which was canceled in 1963, to make way for the race to the moon.

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Edit to add:
www.astronautix.com...

[edit on 26-3-2010 by Blackmarketeer]

Wow fantastic pictures, just in time for the shuttle to be put out to pasture. The last planned shuttle mission is Sept 16 2010, I wonder if there will be any more after that?

en.wikipedia.org...

Beautiful shots,

Makes you wonder where these will go, once they retire them. Smithsonian may need to do some housecleaning to get one of these in there!

These images are quite incredible, really goes to show the amount of manpower needed to make this stuff. Rocket science, it ain't simple!

Thanks for the great post. I never knew they loaded the payload on the pad. Very nice pics.

reply to post by Arbitrageur

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
Wow fantastic pictures, just in time for the shuttle to be put out to pasture. The last planned shuttle mission is Sept 16 2010, I wonder if there will be any more after that?

Probably not. NASA already awarded contracts to SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp. to transport supplies and provide services for the ISS until 2017, which is supposedly when the Ares I rocket and Orion spacecraft will be ready.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said Tuesday it awarded contracts to two closely-held commercial space companies to provide resupply services to the International Space Station. The first-ever NASA commercial space freight contracts were awarded to Orbital Sciences Corp. (ORB 19.12, +0.02, +0.11%) and Space Exploration Technologies of Hawthorne, Calif. Under the contracts, NASA ordered eight flights valued at about $1.9 billion from Orbital and 12 flights valued at about $1.6 billion from SpaceX. The contracts are effective from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2016, and are meant to fill the gap between the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2010 and a next-generation launch vehicle. The contracts require each company to transport at least 20 metric tons of cargo to the space station, NASA said.

www.marketwatch.com...
www.marketwatch.com...

Great pictures OP!

[edit on 29-3-2010 by tooo many pills]

Absolutely love this pic; it's by NASA / Troy Cryder.

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The reason given for the two shuttles being present is the ISS is not in orbit overhead, which acts as a safety net in case mechanical problems occur shortly after launch. No ISS means a second shuttle is prepped and placed on standby as a rescue vehicle.

edit to add:
the pic appears to get resized here, so direct link shows it in all it's glory.

[edit on 30-7-2010 by Blackmarketeer]

These are great pictures. The thing that I wonder is why we still launch rockets the same way we have since the 60's. Take a space plane and strap it to the worlds largest bottle rocket and hope for the best. Those astronauts have to be courageous, because I'm not sure i would feel safe on a tank full of rocket fuel.

Hopefully the retirement of these shuttles will bring about a safer, more eco-friendly way of travel. But then again, probably not.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Actually the last scheduled space shuttle flight is not Sept 16 2010, but Feb. 26 2011. And the chances are more than good that there will be another flight added.

www.nasa.gov...


To the OP: Great thread. I think it's weird that they wait until the thing is on the launch pad before they put the cargo inside the shuttle. I wonder how they do that... I noticed that part of the process isn't shown.

Great pics thanks. This is one of the best threads I have seen in a while.You truly have brought the beauty of the space shuttle and its glory to us. It is amazing to see the inner workings of NASA and the things it takes to get one of these into orbit. I think everyone should watch a live launch from the space center because you just don't get how great it is when you see it on tv. Again thanks for the great pics.

reply to post by fieryjaguarpaw


I always assumed it was to minimize the weight of the shuttle when being moved to the launchpad by the transporter, but looks like there's quite a bit more to it;

From "SPACE SHUTTLE CARGO PROCESSING", at science.ksc.nasa.gov... (scroll towards the bottom of the page)

Payloads follow one of two functional flows: l) those that are installed horizontally into the payload bay at the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF), and 2) those that are installed vertically into the payload bay at the launch pad.

Thx for showing us these pictures....

The basic working of a rocket is not very difficult to understand but when you see all these pipes running allover this shuttle-engine it probably isn't.

A comment on why von Braun didn't tinker with these nazi-saucers is......he maybe did or couldn't or wouldn't know what we are talking about.

All this effort and massive construction to launch a primitive rocket while NASA has a secret space program with inter-galactic Daedalus-class battlecruisers. If you want to fool and mislead even the smart ones you must make an effort......

reply to post by zatara


I couldn't agree with you more, look at it this way - If Von Braun had worked on "Nazi saucers", or the so-called Hanbau, back in WW2, then why would he abandon that to go back to working with primitive rocket tech for Nasa during the 60's? Seems a flaw in logic regarding Hanbau conspiracies.

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


I was reading something the other day that talked about how the ideal shape for a craft to re-enter the atmosphere is a disk. Basically the shape of a flying saucer. The genisis sample return capsule comes to mind.


I'm not saying the Hanbau was real or that the standard conspiracys on the subject are correct or that they had anti-gravity or what not, but it is interesting to think about, and I'm not saying that there isn't some truth to hanbau either. Who knows, maybe the nazis were developing a craft that looked saucer shaped. It actually seems pretty logical when you think about it in the context I'm putting it in.

Fantastic thread OP. Star and flag for this.


A star for a great link, this will help with some things I've been studying like the X-15 and it's 1969 Earth orbit.

[edit on 1-8-2010 by ChicUFO]