SPACE SHUTTLES ,to become museum pieces

[capthelm]

the manhattan NYC intrepid museum is one location for one of the shuttles, the museum has placed a bid for one of the spacecraft.

site below.

Please sign the petition to bring a space shuttle to New York City and The Intrepid
http://www.intrepidmuseum.org/shuttle/

..................

america is almost broke , space program is halted , no future programs for now. obama has canned the shuttle's successor program for now.. till america hopefully gets back on her feet.


http://www.intrepidmuseum.org/Latest...e-Shuttle.aspx

[CCIP]

It'd be cool for it to be at that museum. It's where one of the concordes is too, right?

Concorde + Shuttle in one place =

I've seen the Explorer at KSC - man, the scale of the shuttles is definitely pretty striking in person. Not as striking as the Saturn V, but they're really big and impressive vehicles. Would be great to see these on display all around the land.

[capthelm]

rather see them in museums , than laying rusting away in a field somewhere.
also trying not to get to political here
shame its came to this. mess left behind from a previous enept president.
and the mass must cutbacks here in the states, to try save old glory from sinking completely.

same fate the ussr space program got into.

a...leaders and failed systems, when are we going to learn none work.

[Skybird]

A German technology museum in Speyer has the Russian orbiter "Buran", it is the only piece of it's kind. It would be cool to have an American Space Shuttle there alongside it's Russian companion.

Buran was - and is! - the only space-shuttle-type vehicle that is able to fly in space and land again while being fully remote-controlled.

[razark]

I'd be surprised if they ended up anywhere other than where the Saturn Vs ended up.

I can see them putting one of the orbiters at Kennedy Space Center, one at Marshall Space Flight Center, and one here at Johnson Space Center.

The only other place I can think they would put one would be at Edwards AFB. The Smithsonian already has the first vehicle, Enterprise.

I just hope that wherever those birds end up, they are taken care of. The Saturn V at JSC was left outdoors for years. It was in very sad condition. A few years back, they built a building around it and restored it. I haven't taken the time to visit it since then, but I've seen pictures, and it looks so much better.

Originally Posted by Skybird

Buran was - and is! - the only space-shuttle-type vehicle that is able to fly in space and land again while being fully remote-controlled.

After the Columbia accident, the US shuttles were given the capability to land without a crew. The problem was that certain functions were not available to the computer. Releasing the docking clamps, dropping the landing gear, and releasing the drag chute were the main problems.

The engineers developed a way to do it. There is a cable (kept aboard the space station) that can connect certain computer outputs that are not needed during re-entry/landing to the needed controls. With the cable in place, a shuttle could be landed completely under computer control.

It's extremely unlikely that it would ever happen. The current plan is that if an orbiter is unable to return safely with its crew, the vehicle would be re-entered in such a way that it would come down in the Pacific, in an attitude that would minimize debris reaching earth. If it were to be brought down at one of the landing sites, it would have to pass over populated areas, and the risk was deemed to be unacceptable.

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by Skybird

A German technology museum in Speyer has the Russian orbiter "Buran", it is the only piece of it's kind. It would be cool to have an American Space Shuttle there alongside it's Russian companion.

Buran was - and is! - the only space-shuttle-type vehicle that is able to fly in space and land again while being fully remote-controlled.

Shame that program never came to real fruition, other than the one flight.

By the way, the Buran at Speyer is not the actual spacecraft - it was an athmospheric flight test machine, the rough equivalent of Enterprise for the US shuttle program. That's why it has jet engines - as opposed to the Enterprise, it actually took off and flew on its own power before doing its glide tests. I'm not sure whether like Enterprise, it also lacked an actual working heat shield. I suspect that was the case.

[Oberon]

The actual Buran was destroyed in a hangar collapse in 2002 in Kazakhstan

Please sign the petition to bring a space shuttle to New York City and The Intrepid

They are already pushing too hard there for the amount of space they have, they really cannot do enuogh of their exhibitions justice(honestly I would dread to go apart from mid week off season even on condition that all the schools are busy doing some sort of exam that day).
As for the Concord exhibit.....
really one fat person wanting to get in concord and thats it for the day, not only remove the plexigalss but rip out the seats as well.

On the other hand what about that rocket place out in flushing that has loads of land, easy access but only a few exhibits and no real development of them apart from at a small local level.

[capthelm]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

They are already pushing too hard there for the amount of space they have, they really cannot do enuogh of their exhibitions justice(honestly I would dread to go apart from mid week off season even on condition that all the schools are busy doing some sort of exam that day).
As for the Concord exhibit.....
really one fat person wanting to get in concord and thats it for the day, not only remove the plexigalss but rip out the seats as well.

On the other hand what about that rocket place out in flushing that has loads of land, easy access but only a few exhibits and no real development of them apart from at a small local level.

space already made for it.

[bookworm_020]

Originally Posted by Oberon

The actual Buran was destroyed in a hangar collapse in 2002 in Kazakhstan

On of the flight test machines came to Sydney back around 1999, but ended up in pieces in a car park after fights broke out over who owened it after the company who brought it out went belly up.

I remember seeing it near the old casino here in Sydney in 2000. A sad sight indeed!

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by bookworm_020

On of the flight test machines came to Sydney back around 1999, but ended up in pieces in a car park after fights broke out over who owened it after the company who brought it out went belly up.

I think that is the one in Speyer, about the Speyer orbiter I have read that it was found during a sports championship, by a german TV crew that found it rotting in some backyard. It was bought and then transported via a ferry on the Rhine. The price including transportation was around 10 million, I believe to recall.

There was that flight test model, and a working Buran (1) that was conducting one remote-controlled flight, then never took off again and later was destroyed in that Hanger. A second Buran (2) was under construction, but never got completed although being in a very advanced construction state.

So, the one in Speyer indeed is the only existing model there is.