ET doors & 17-inch disconnects never failed.
They always scared the bejeebers outta me.
- First shirt-sleeve, 14psi sea-level cabin atmosphere in space.
- No inflight SSME failure ever.
I could be wrong but what about the Soyuz capsule atmosphere? I think they use this kind of atmosphere before.
What about the STS 51-F failure of the center SSME and the subsequent ATO?
The backup gear release pyros were never used. In flight.
No Ku-band jettison ever.
As many of us have been taking a look back at the shuttle program from the vantage point of its end, I have been exploring everything that we hoped it would be from the beginning.
Google Books search for all magazines containing the phrase "Space Shuttle" published from 1/1/1970 - 12/31/1979
http://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=%22space+shuttle%22&tbs=,bkt:m,cdr:1,cd_min:Jan%201_2%201970,cd_max:Dec%2031_2%201979&num=50I got the idea for doing this after finding an old box of Popular Science magazines from the 1970's that my uncle had saved, which included several issues with articles on the shuttle. Fascinating stuff to read, as the idea for the shuttle matured from the initial concept in the 1970s into the orbiter that we came to know after the past 30 years. The shuttle never became the "airline in space that could launch payloads for $10/lb" that was envisioned, but I think it really gave us something much, much better.
Have a read....you'll love it!
Craig
Going to have a technical and emotional article Entry and Landing overview via L2 content later today.
Adding:
-No use of the docking system pyros ever
Were the landing gear pyros ever used?
The nose landing gear assist pyro fires at every deploy. The backup gear release pyros were never used. In flight.
They also never needed to use the PDRS jettison, overhead window or side hatch pyro systems either. Nor all of the various burst disks on the various presurized systems (not pyro, but you get the idea)
Therre's a lot of contingency systems on the shuttle that were never actually employed. Which is all very good.
I don't think that the following items have yet been mentioned in the thread:
- Never had to use the wire-slide baskets, the bunker, or the armored personnel carrier at the pad to escape from a pad-accident-in-progress
- Never had to make use of the bail-out pole to bail out and ditch the shuttle during a landing
- Never had to engage the BFS due to a software problem with the PASS software running on the GPCs
- Never had to use the RCO cable to drop the landing gear and land the shuttle unpiloted
- Never had to use the tile repair kit to repair real tile damage.
There are probably hundreds of other contingencies and redundant systems that were never used...but it's fun to try to list them all because it's a testament to the job that the shuttle workforce did to fly the shuttle safely.
Craig
114 Hi Res photos showing Atlantis's reentry from the Cupola on the ISS now in L2
That's right, 114!
Lot and lots of undocking photos too, someone was asking about those earlier. 400 RPM photos, other unreleased mission photos, full sequence wide cam ISS/Atlantis photos, and photos are just a small part of what L2 does.
Why are you not on L2 yet, if you aren't
Actually it's 216MB now =D
Seriously if anyone is reading this and hasn't joined L2, what the hell are you waiting for!? =D
114 Hi Res photos showing Atlantis's reentry from the Cupola on the ISS now in L2
That's right, 114!
Lot and lots of undocking photos too, someone was asking about those earlier. 400 RPM photos, other unreleased mission photos, full sequence wide cam ISS/Atlantis photos, and photos are just a small part of what L2 does.
Why are you not on L2 yet, if you aren't
...
- Never had to use the RCO cable to drop the landing gear and land the shuttle unpiloted
...
Craig
BTW, with STS-135 safely back on earth, what happens to that piece of Shuttle memorabilia? Did it come back inside Atlantis to end up in a museum, or is it still at the ISS? (if the latter, most probably it ends up burning on reentry in an HTV or something...)
Just saw the edition of "This week @ NASA", a podcast I automatically get via iTunes. Remember Charles Bolden accidentally referred to the returning STS-13
4 crew? In "This week @ NASA" you can still see he says 134, but it has been rerecorded so you hear him say 13
5. Would be rather embarrasing to go down in history with that mistake I guess. If you want to hear the mistake, watch the video from
www.nasa.gov/shuttle.
But now for something more serious: Like most of the people on this site, I was captured/hooked when I saw the first space shuttle lift off on STS-1. I live in the Netherlands and until NASA TV was distributed over the internet a glimpse on the national news was all I could see. Over the years launches and landings were covered (in 30-second fragments) except for exceptional missions or the two tragic accidents. When NASA TV started airing over the internet, that was very very welcome. When I was referred to NSF and discovered the tons of information it holds, the thousands of pictures and (like also in this final flight) up-to-date and technically correct info that was shear heaven. Thanks all the contributors, notably Chris and padrat, rkoen and many other "regulars". NSF ROCKS.
I am especially interested in launch sequences, the clocks, timings etc. I would have loved to ever sit next to Mike Leinbach, or stay in the MCC during a launch, never taking my eyes of the 3 main screens and the dozens of clocks above it. NASA TV and NSF have provided me with pictures, footage and information.
Now the SSP has come to an end, I too feel sad. I can't even read many of the comments on this thread without breaking out into tears again. Partly because I know there will never be a shuttle lifting off and uncertainty about the future of manned spaceflight (who, when, with what), but mostly for the people I've come appreciate in the space industry, the SSP and the workforce at NASA centres across the US.
I don't know any of you personally (I must admit I never even have found the time and opportunity to visit KSC!) but I want to thank you all and hope new (job) opportunities will present themselves soon. I also hope for a worthy follow-up on the magnificent work the shuttles and their crews have been doing in the last 30+ years!!!!
Many thanks to the fine people who made these birds fly. From the janitors to the astronauts, you have provided me with great memories and inspiration.
From my earliest memories of Gemini, I had wanted to be involved with the manned space program. I never was able to make that dream a reality, but all of those hard working people have served as an inspiration for me to always do my best and live by the motto "It won't fail because of me."
My shuttle memories started in March 1979 when Columbia was ferried across the country. I posted pics from that day in this thread:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=1420.0It truly affected me in a positive way. I am not working the space program, but it put me on my career path.
Later my Mom and Dad took me to the first launch attempt of STS-2. The day before the launch we took the KSC bus tour. We had a great view of the stack because the RSS was rotated away. None of the pictures turned out because my Dad didn't load the film right (pre-digital age folks). Then he locked the keys in the car during the launch attempt. We had to leave my Mom on the hood of the car while a nice person took us to find a locksmith. After several hours one final attempt to launch was stopped at T-31 seconds. After the launch was cancelled we got stuck in traffic. Between the letdown, excitement, the stop and go, and fumes I managed to yak in the car. Good times.
I finally saw a launch in 1996, STS-76 Atlantis! It was a spring break trip for me during my last year in college. I got a causeway pass with an awesome view. Atlantis put on a tremendous show during this night launch.
A friend was invited to watch STS-127 by Julie Payette. He is the artistic director for an orchestra in Houston and Payette requested some of his music to take on the flight and he was also invited to watch the launch. He offered to take me on his launch trip, so I totally got to mooch of him. Unfortunately the infamous GUCP problems of summer 2009 kept us from seeing the launch.
Last, my wife sent my 6 year old son and I down to the STS-135 launch. It was a great birthday present and totally surprise. She had been encouraging me to go for quite a while and she pushed me to go. I am glad she did. I had a fun father-son trip with my oldest son. We watched from Sand Point Park in Titusville. Truly an incredible trip.
Here's the video I took:
The 31 second hold brought back a 30 year old feeling from the cancelled STS-2 attempt. I'm thankful that was a short lived feeling!
Thank you to Chris B. and everyone who helps with this site. It has been tremendous following the program here.
To close I just want to say "Thank you" to everyone who worked on the program. I want to say a special thank you to the camera operators who tracked the vehicle during ascent and landing allowing us to witness history unfold.
Chris,
I'd also like to add my thanks to you for keeping this thread open for people to place comments. I wouldn't know where else to post. A general thread just wouldn't do it. The thread where it all came to an end seems much more apprpriate. Kind of like placing flowers along the road side where some one lost there life...
Here's another thought regarding the whole shuttle program.
PAO Rob Naivas(?) remarked on the ISS being "a million pound city in the sky".
Some other NSF member has a quote refering to the ISS as a moon.
The thought that ocurred to me was that as capable as the shuttle was, it never took us to the the moon.
Instead it did something much more impressive,
it built one.
Brian
Good turnout for this afternoon's traditional crew return ceremony at Ellington Field. Attached a few thumbnails shot from in between TV cameras.
I thought I’d add my own reflections on the end of the Shuttle program. I’ve been visiting NSF for years now, and while I’m a lurker, I’m a very keen lurker – I love all the information and experience that’s available here (and I’m not even on L2 – yet). Before I begin, I want to thank all of you here at NSF for giving me more information than I ever dreamed I’d find related to the Shuttle.
I grew up with the Space Shuttle. I was born about a year after STS-51L, so the Shuttle has been the only space program I’ve known. I suppose I’ve always been excited by NASA and by the Shuttles. I remember when I was maybe 3 years old, my dad took me and my brother to one room in our house, turned out the lights, and pointed out the window. There was a space shuttle, gliding silently and steadily across the night sky. He told me that they were going to build a space station (Freedom, I now know), and in my young mind, I assumed that meant that they’d launch piece after piece until the station circled the globe, creating an artificial ring.
I really fell in love with the Space Shuttle on STS-112 (which is why, irrationally I suppose, Atlantis is my favorite orbiter). I remember eagerly waiting to watch the ET camera footage, and watching the landing replay. Somehow, the PAO’s calls, “Main gear touchdown. Melroy now deploying the drag chute. Nose gear touchdown. Atlantis rolling out on runway 33 at the Kennedy Space Center, wrapping up a four and a half million mile mission to continue the expansion of the International Space Station” summed up the Space Shuttle’s mission better than anything else I’ve ever heard, before or since. It was matter-of-fact, yet full of drama. Behind those few, fragmented sentences was the fire of launch, the danger of EVA, the precision of entry, the very human effort at landing – drama of the highest order, concealed in the terse words of a consummate professional.
The Shuttle is why I became an aerospace engineer. If I couldn’t fly in space (I know the chances are slim), I wanted to work on a vehicle as beautiful and magnificent as the Space Shuttle.
The end of the Shuttle program came much too fast. Atlantis was my favorite shuttle, and come hell or high water, I wanted to see her launch. Three weeks before the launch, I booked a train down and an airplane back. I managed to convince my brother to join me – Atlantis was launching on his birthday. I had the great fortune of having a friend from NASA Glenn with a causeway pass. On July 8, we loaded up at 6 in the morning, and got to KSC for the nail-biting conclusion of the Shuttle program.
STS-135 was the very first shuttle mission I watched in person, and the realization came much too quickly that it was also the very last. There was no lack of drama. My heart was pounding from the moment they came out of the T-9 minute hold, and it damn near stopped when they held at T-31. After a nail-biting two minutes, made worse by the fact that I could barely make out what was being said over the loudspeakers, I watched as Atlantis lit her engines for the final time and rose gracefully over her plume into the morning sky.
Her launch was much too quick, and while the rumble from her SRBs engulfed us for what seemed like hours after she disappeared into the clouds, the truth is, I didn’t want to see her go.
A few days after she launched, I went to NASA Glenn for a meeting. On a flag pole outside the admin building, below the ISS flag, the Atlantis flag was flapping in the breeze. It was a melancholy sight, to see the flag of a Space Shuttle flying for the very last time. It was worse to think that in a matter of days, Atlantis would no longer be a majestic space vehicle; that she would become a museum curiosity.
And just as her launch was too quick, her mission went by in the blink of an eye. I silently watched Atlantis land, and after a rollout that seemed much quicker than any other I had ever seen, her wheels came to a stop for the final time after a mission. And where I expected chatter between her crew and Houston, I only heard silence.
After an eternity, the crackle of static came through, as Commander Ferguson keyed his mic.
“Mission complete, Houston.”
He was right, of course. Atlantis’ mission was complete. She was far from useless, far from outdated, but her mission, defined (for better or worse) by politicians in Washington, was complete. Her service, and that of her sisters, would forever be a memory now. She had done all that was asked of her, and her mission was complete. Seeing Atlantis put out to pasture came with the realization that the only space program I knew was, at last, finished. And with that came a certain melancholy. I hope, though, that we’ll push forward, and the Shuttle will not be a culmination but a stepping stone in our journey of discovery.
So thank you, to all of you who have worked on the Shuttle, and thank you, to all of you who have made the Shuttle accessible to those of us who could only watch from afar. Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour – they were remarkable vehicles that sparked the imagination and flew where dreams take wing.
