Shuttle Atlantis - end of an era

[billybob476]

We Canadians sure know how to represent in space :)

[davekill]

Starbase 66 July 26th show interviews a NASA engineer regarding the last Shuttle mission:
http://www.simplysyndicated.com/shows/starbase66/

[turtlesrock]

Starbase 66 July 26th show interviews a NASA engineer regarding the last Shuttle mission:
http://www.simplysyndicated.com/shows/starbase66/

cute pic!

[billybob476]

The orbiters are being decommissioned and 'autopsied' by the remaining engineering crew right now:

Technicians had worn them for decades as they prepared the space shuttles for their move from Kennedy Space Center's three Orbiter Processing Facilities to the towering Vehicle Assembly Building, and eventually the launch pad. "Bunnysuits," those white coveralls with floppy hoods and rubber-banded booties, were designed to keep dirt and debris from contaminating the orbiter interiors.

But on this summer day in one Orbiter Processing Facility, technicians working inside Discovery's crew module wore street clothes. No need to worry about contamination: Discovery would not be returning to space.

After flying 148 million miles and orbiting Earth 5,830 times, Discovery, first flown in August 1984, was being decommissioned and readied for its trip to the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in northern Virginia, where it will arrive in mid-April. The three main engines had been removed from the shuttle's aft end, which was now covered by a tightly fitted mask with three white discs the size of the engine bells. Clear plastic stretched across the crater in the orbiter's nose, where the forward reaction control system—small thrusters that maneuvered the spacecraft in orbit—had been removed. And this harvesting of the orbiter's components was only the beginning.
[ ... ]

http://www.airspacemag.com/space-exploration/Orbiter-Autopsies.html