Posted on 02/17/2006 7:35:54 PM PST by NormsRevenge
With just 17 or so flights left on the shuttle manifest before the program is terminated in 2010, NASA's three remaining orbiters can only expect to fly about five missions each. As it turns out, NASA now plans to retire Atlantis in 2008, after five flights, rather than put it through a required overhaul and to "fly out" the remaining half-dozen missions on the manifest with Discovery and Endeavour.
But shuttle program manager Wayne Hale told Kennedy Space Center employees today that Atlantis will not be given to a museum, at least not right away. Instead, the space shuttle will be used for spare parts to help keep Discovery and Endeavour healthy through the end of the program.
"Atlantis will be coming due for an OMDP (orbiter maintenance down period) in the '08 time frame," Hale said. "And we looked the manifest and laid it out and we believe we can fly the '08, '09 and '10 time frame with Discovery and Endeavour.
"Discovery just came out of OMDP and Endeavour is just about to come out of OMDP. So it looks like the right thing to do is not to put Atlantis through another OMDP, which would get it ready to go fly maybe just at the very end, in 2010, but rather use it was a parts donor, if that's the word, for the other vehicles.
"So we're going to try to keep it in as near flight ready condition as we can without putting it through an OMDP so we can use those parts," Hale said. "Quite frankly, people are already calling us and asking us can they display one of our orbiters in their museum after we're done with it. I'm not giving anybody anything until we're all agreed the station is complete and the shuttle's job is done. In the sense that we're talking about mothballing, I'm not sure that's the term I'd use."
All shuttles are required to undergo periodic inspections and modifications to maintain their overall health. Such OMDP overhauls can take a year or more to complete.
Sorry. No tail number. The only ones I remember were mine. 79-0219 and 82-0659.
LOL No worries there...in 1985-88, I was fresh out of high school and in college...I didn't come in till 1993, and then as an officer.
I tried at one time to locate my old A-10's but never could track them down. Probably in the desert collecting dust in mothball.
Here it is.
:-)
"That's "space station", singular."
There have been 3 formal space stations: Soyuz maintained by cosmonauts; Skylab repaired in space and maintained by astronauts; and the ISS built and maintained by both astronauts and cosmonauts. There have also been a number of on-board SpaceLabs flown in the shuttle bay that were essentially short-term space stations based on their configuration.
"We have whole planets to explore, we have new worlds to build. We have a solar system to roam in. And if only a tiny fraction of the human race reaches out toward space, the work they do there will totally change the lives of all the billions of humans who remain on earth, just as the strivings of a handful of colonists in the new world totally changed the lives of everyone in Europe, Asia & Africa." -Astronaut Dick Scobee (A note found in his briefcase by his wife after he was lost on Challenger)
His widow June wrote.......
"Had Dick left the note in his briefcase for us to find if something happened? Did he write it on scratch paper to use to quote in a speech? All we'll ever know is that when we most needed a message, it was there. He left for us his dream for the world, his vision for space exploration."
79-0219 was last noted with the 103rd FS during August 2005
82-0659 was last noted with the 103rd FS during May 2005
This is an image of 79-0219 during the Wright-Patterson show in 2003:
How did you find that? You are the web search master!
FReepers are awesome!
Or if they put more priority on real science instead of putting the first amputee midget porn star from turdworldistan into space.
I see.
Of equal significance to the shuttle issues, I believe, is why Dan Goldin was not sent to jail for his criminal management failures. Not to be judgemental....
Probably not the nose-art it carried when you last saw it?
The present ISS is but one of a long line of predecessors. First Salyut-1, then Skylab, followed by Salyut-4, Salyut-6, and Salyut-7. These were followed by Mir which was on orbit for 15 incredible years.
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