Posted on 07/11/2010 9:38:53 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
NASA and Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company have paid tribute to the workforce who built the external tanks for the space shuttle fleet.
The last external tank scheduled to fly on a shuttle mission was completed on June 25 by Lockheed Martin workers at Michoud.
"ET-138 is the last in a series of tanks that has provided increasingly safer launches of space shuttles," said John Honeycutt, manager of the External Tank project.
The tank was scheduled to depart after the ceremony Thursday aboard the Pegasus barge on a six-day, 900-mile sea journey to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida where it will support shuttle Endeavour’s STS-134 launch.
At Kennedy, ET-138 will be processed for flight, mated with twin solid rocket boosters and attached to space shuttle Endeavour in preparation for the last scheduled orbiter mission.
(Excerpt) Read more at brahmand.com ...
Lots of pink slips handed out over there at the end of June.
I think we are ending the program prematurily but then
I would have built fifty shuttles in the first place.
Now we can only look ahead and come up with Generation II.
and ride it up the gravity well, or be left behind to
extinction.
If they are not building any External Tanks we can safely say that the Shuttle program is over. I would have done was this. I would have a military space program and have a civilian program.
Yea, too bad the technology is not quite ready to build a beanstalk. But we're getting there. Or we were before Kenyan Jack started sterilizing the seeds.
Now it will probably be the Japanese or the Chinese that finally build a space elevator.
Makes me mad enough to spit nails and s--t anvils.
STUPID design.
/johnny
They did have a design to use the external tanks to build a space station.
/johnny
Weren’t Shuttle external fuel tanks invented by Muslims?
A camel designed by committee.
The shuttle was originally supposed to have a fully-reusable, winged first stage.
The fuel tank and solid boosters were supposed to be a cheaper alternative. Never mind that using roman-candle solid boosters on man-rated spacecraft was a no-no.
Well, they turned it into a widow-maker.
That would have made for some seriously roomy accomodations. The Intl space station is so narrow by comparison. Even old Skylab with its Saturn V third stage body was wider.
It would have been much cheaper to use the external tanks than the ISS.
Yeah, they're down to about 1,000 workers there now, around one-fourth of the usual head count. Half of those remaining will be gone in a month or two.
I grew up practically in the shadow of that facility, back when it was still building the Saturn V booster stages. Never worked there, but a number of relatives and friends did over the years. It's sad that for the first time since WWII, that facility has no immediate future. Well, except for the other federal tenants on the grounds, like the federal payroll processing people. You know *they* aren't going anywhere.
I’m not sure if anything is going on over at Stennis. Usually I hear rocket engine tests, but they have been silent for months now. Last test I heard was about a month after obama killed all the NASA projects.
The rocket testing you mention has not been halted... on 0bama’s instruction, the testing is now under the direction of Hezbollah and takes place in Lebanon.
Making Muslims feel good about themselves might not pay the bills, but they will feel better about their NEW job.
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