"During the STS-134 Overview Briefing on March 24 John Shannon seemed to be suggesting that all the orbiters would be fitted with older technology SSMEs for display purposes.Bill Harwood asked "... what sort of things are going to stay in the orbiter for display, and what things are going to be replaced with mock-ups .."After describing how Block II engines and associated GSE will be retained and stored for future use John Shannon said the following:"... so what we did is we went and really searched the facilities for excess hardware that we could build-up into some main engines and we've been doing that recently - so we'll have 9 engines we'll put into each of the vehicles that are older technology engines but they're real nozzles that flew, they're real combustion chambers, real pumps. And so we'll take out the really good engines that we'd like to save for the next program, we'll put in rebuilt engines that we kinda scrapped together .. and that is what will be displayed."He also said he was trying to find enough funds and parts to build some static engines that can be displayed separately alongside the orbiters.
Only seeing the old nozzle makes sense. See the article on the concept.http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2010/10/replica-engines-retired-orbtiers-flown-ssmes-hlv/
Quote from: Carl G on 04/11/2011 07:45 pmOnly seeing the old nozzle makes sense. See the article on the concept.http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2010/10/replica-engines-retired-orbtiers-flown-ssmes-hlv/I know all that. It just seems Shannon announced a major shift in the plan going forward and it sounds like some significant effort is being made there. I wonder how all this will actually work out.
