Only way to move Space Shuttle Discovery is to chop it into pieces, White House told How would you move Space Shuttle Discovery from Virginia to Texas? The White House Office of Management and Budget asked NASA and the Smithsonian Institution and the response was to dismantle it. The space agency and research institute estimate "that the cost to move Discovery to Houston would, at minimum, be between $120 …
I think you are on to something. If Texas and Virginia were to somehow unite as states within some larger entity then they could share their mutual advantages, assets, and features. There would be no need to bicker over what belongs to one of them or the other of them, because everything would belong to the citizens of all. "Yours" and "mine" would become "ours". What a glorious thing that could be.
Except we didn't - the British only burned down the public buildings in Washington, making sure to avoid private property, and to pay for any food they took from private citizens etc.
This is in stark contrast to the American invasion of York (now Toronto) where the Americans burned and looted indiscriminately.
"They tried that once already. It was called The Confederacy. It didn't end well."
No, that was a messy and ultimately unsuccessful divorce where the parters were forced to continue living together. It's been hell on the kids and they've grown up with all sorts of mental issues as a result.
I thought the letter of the law required something like "a space vehicle that has been to space and carried astronauts" - Couldn't they just ask Elon nicely if rather than splashing Flight 11's Starship into the Indian Ocean, could he please replace the fake Starlink payload with a seat for the winner of a special "once in a lifetime" raffle prize, and kindly land it instead somewhere on a spare bit of land near the Saturn V at Johnson?
Doesn't seem too much to ask?...
Technically impossible to "leave" Earth's gravity, although if you go far enough the influence becomes unmeasurable I believe. However, the moon is definitely still well within the reach of Earth's gravity so we probably don't have a vehicle that meets the criteria unless you want to hunt down Voyager 1 and get an astronaut to fly it home (Dr Strangelove style, I assume).
How do you leave the Earth's gravity? We are under the influence of Jupiter's gravity, are we on Jupiter or within its atmosphere? No.
Even leaving the atmosphere is nonsesnse, that makes the ISS an atmospheric station since it has to be boosted to counter atmospheric drag.
Go look up the Karman Line, which is very well defined. (and hope I didn't substitute the name of a Kerbal by accident lol)
The Karman line is just another arbitrary definition. It's a perfectly reasonable one, but it's unreasonable to suggest it's the only one.
To quote the fount of all knowledge: "the later established Kármán line is more general and has no distinct physical significance, in that there is a rather gradual difference between the characteristics of the atmosphere at the line, and experts disagree on defining a distinct boundary where the atmosphere ends and space begins".
Karman definition is adequately specific and has a physical significance.
To fly on the Karman Line you will need to move at a speed which is not lower than the orbital velocity at that radius.
It isn't a Karman Hairline, you'd draw it with a brush, and it may jiggle with seasons and so on. But it does it's job.
The problem is that the current NASA administrator (Sean Duffy) is in the pockets of the Trump admin, so he's going to "yes man" anything they put in front of him when it comes to these outrageous plans. That prick is not going to go along with any plan to send anything other than a spaceshuttle, scuppering the whole thing.
It didn't say a "from", either. Just a "to".
Starliner is a good candidate, especially as it's considerably more successful than the senator who demanded this.
The first SpaceShip Two would also qualify, and that's a lot easier to move as it's sadly already been rapidly dismantled.
I thought the letter of the law required something like "a space vehicle that has been to space and carried astronauts"
Yeh, but if people actually read what was in the bill there wouldn't have been all the articles about how to move a space shuttle and the usual rants against Trunp. Then it seems to have turned into how to move Discovery from the Smithsonian, prompting lots of tooth sucking and inflated quotes. Meanwhile, the Enterprise is already sitting on a barge in NY. Sorta.
The problem is that they clearly stated their intentions when putting it in the bill, but the regulations don't allow to make it apply to one specific object, so they had to make it as vague as they could in order for it to get into an appropriations bill. Now that they have this bill in effect, they just need to get their already positioned "yes man" NASA administrator Sean Duffy to say they want to move Discovery and there you go. It was very clear they want to get a real space shuttle in Houston (God knows why) and since they failed to make a good proposal when Shuttles were actually being distributed (their offer/plan was actually BOTTOM of the list, even after several other sites that didn't get a shuttle) they now have to resort to stealing one. There's 3 options:
Discovery is in the Smithsonian (where it should be) and is the best preserved in an institution known for being capable of taking extremely good care of such large artifacts and world class conservation.
Atlantis is at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. The place the shuttles launched from. There's no way to deny that this is a far more important location to the Shuttle program than the place the astronauts trained and where they talked to the shuttles.
Endeavour is at the California Science Center. California historically also has a lot of strong links with the shuttle program. It's where the orbiters were built.
Taking Atlantis from the Kennedy Space Center would be... unexplainable. It's claims to "having a shuttle" are FAR stronger than Houston.
Taking Endeavour from California would be extremely difficult because it was flown there on a Shuttle Transport Aircraft and those no longer fly (funnily enough one of those STAs is AT HOUSTON with a replica shuttle on top of it and anecdotally 95% of visitors can't tell the difference or don't care about the difference). Transporting Atlantis from California would thus mean a very lengthy and slow trip south through Los Angeles to Long Beach or Terminal Island where it gets loaded on a barge. Then another very long and slow trip south through the panama canal, back up north to the Gulf of Mexico and into Houston. Where presumably an entirely new building will have to be built to house whatever Shuttle they get.
That leaves Discovery. Taking it from the Smithsonian is downright sacrilege and will mean doing irreparable damage to the orbiter but it's the only one that's both slightly excusable (to those idiots that think Houston getting a shuttle is more important than preserving the artifact) and slightly doable (as long as you don't mind doing irreparable damage to the artifact).
The Shuttle at Intrepid (Enterprise) isn't "real" as it's a test article that never launched to space. It is thus not eligible under this bill.
The Shuttle at Intrepid (Enterprise) isn't "real" as it's a test article that never launched to space. It is thus not eligible under this bill.
Such is politics. There's 3 and a half shuttles, they're all already on display in museums. Houston doesn't have one, so tough luck. All the museums are kinda privately owned (ish), so if Houston wants one, it can try and buy one from one of the museums and pay for shipping. It doesn't exactly seem like a good use of public money, but then all the porkbarrels crammed into megabills rarely is.
But Enterprise is still probably the most sane candidate. Plus it's the one I've seen and thought "Funny place to park a space shuttle". It's also enough of a shuttle that most visitors won't know or care that it never went to space. It's marketed as a space shuttle and its only if you read the display. But the Intrepid museum is a bit.. odd. Constantly flirting with bankruptcy and an eclectic collection of stuff that doesn't really make sense. When I went (60 Hudson St, yey!) it was also in a pretty grim part of town, but maybe the redevelopment will help attract more visitors. But the shuttle takes up a fair chunk of the museum's real-estate space that might be better used focusing on naval aviation.
If Houston wants to argue in court that the Intrepid museum shouldn't have got a shuttle, let them, but don't waste taxpayers money doing so.
I get what you're saying but if you consider Enterprise "good enough" then Houston already HAS a shuttle that is good enough. Independence is a full size high-fidelity mockup that's now sitting on top of the SCA on display at the Space Center Houston (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Independence). Anecdotally from museum docents 90% of visitors don't know or care that it's a replica.
"and anecdotally 95% of visitors can't tell the difference or don't care about the difference"
So there's four shuttles that were active now in museums, one prototype that never went into space, a replica that most people can't tell from the real McCoy...how many of the bloody things do they need?
Seems to me a lot of people dancing up and down about the possibility of "damage" to an artefact that the plebs can't touch or go in, and which even researchers would struggle to get much access to. I can understand the outrage at any museum losing their prize exhibit (although presumably it was always on loan anyway?), but I'm still puzzled by the fuss about cutting one up to transport it. Does it really matter if it's broken down, reassembled with some extra strapping, welds and Polyfilla on broken heat tiles? It's still <whatever shuttle> it was, just as the Cutty Sark is still the original Cutty Sark even if most of it's new wood.
There's 3 space flown shuttles (Discovery, Atlantis, Endeavour) and one test article that has flown aerodynamic flights (Enterprise).
And yes, from a "conserve an artifact in the best way we can" standpoint it's absolutely vital that we avoid all damage we can. Any damage we do now leads to further deterioration down the line. This is simply how museum preservation best practices work. The heat shield tiles are fragile, and get more fragile with age. Breaking some and stressing all of them now will near certainly result in more of them breaking in the future. It doesn't matter that the general "plebs" can't touch or "go into" the artifact (that's what full size replicas like Space Center Houston's "Space Shuttle Independence" are for). Damage doesn't make it "not the space shuttle" but it simply means damage. Damage that cannot be properly repaired. Damage that will remain for the rest of the lifetime of the object. Making sure that we keep Discovery (and other shuttles) in as good a condition as possible NOW means that we can keep coming back to them to better understand their construction in the future. No, the documentation we have alone is not sufficient for that.
The heat shield tiles are fragile, and get more fragile with age. Breaking some and stressing all of them now will near certainly result in more of them breaking in the future.
That's another argument for moving Enterprise. It has 'fake' tiles, but is still in interesting artefact as it was the prototype, even if it never made it to space.
It doesn't matter that the general "plebs" can't touch or "go into" the artifact (that's what full size replicas like Space Center Houston's "Space Shuttle Independence" are for)
Also why I think it's a waste of money trying to move one. I've seen the Enterprise. Yey. Can only see the exterior from a distance, so to me, wasn't that exciting. For $150m, it would seem possible to build a more interactive 'museum quality' replica visitors could walk through, see some of the interior and probably get more visitors.
...we can keep coming back to them to better understand their construction in the future. No, the documentation we have alone is not sufficient for that.
Except it's questionable how much value that has given if we wanted to build Shuttle Mk2 we wouldn't build it the same way, and there are limits to understanding construction without touching them or destructive testing. There's probably enough documentation around to know how they were built along with how they performed, ie how tiles held up to re-entry.. except a lot of that detail is still classified.
This post has been deleted by its author
they *did* do the inital drop/launch tests with an airliner didn't they.Strapped to the top if I remember rightly - posting without looking it up.
CorwinX,
They did use the special Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. It took rather a lot of modification, given that they were sticking an 80 tonne vehicle on the back, held on with big metal poles.
There's a very good episode of the podcast 16 Sunsets, which covers this very test. The Shuttle pilots were quite worried about it, as the 747 had to go into a shallow dive, and they have to get off and glide along above it - giving the 747 time to get out of the way. Which given that the Shuttle had the glide performance of a brick - and there's a 747 below them and its tail following along rapidly - they were quite concerned about killing the pilots of the 747 and/or themselves. Particularly as they had ejection seats, which the 747 crew didn't.
The first step to converting it to Air Force One, the supposed reason for accepting it, is to completely gut it. The plane will need to be rebuilt from the ground up to add communication and protection systems. At least for the shuttle they wouldn't have to put anything back in.
The Udvar-Hazy Center, where Discovery is housed, is over 20 miles from the nearest river. The shuttle has a wingspan on the order of 7 lanes worth of highway, and there aren't any highways that are at least 7 lanes in one direction leaving Udvar-Hazy. Even closing the roads both ways would mean dismantling road signs along the route, and most of the bigger roads are divided highways with median strips and barriers that would also need to be removed. Plus the shuttle tail height is about 6 stories; none of the bridges they'd have to go under would clear that. Most of them wouldn't even clear the fuselage, let alone the tail. And that's without allowing for the transporter it'd need to be on. The Johnson Space Flight Center, the putative destination, is also not anywhere near the water. So same problems (though they might have some wider highways).
My understanding is that they'd be able to get a barge into Clear lake, and from there it's about a mile to Space Center Houston or any other location in the Johnson Space Flight Center along a very wide parkway. Getting the shuttle into Houston isn't the problem. Getting it out of the Smithsonian is.
"The Udvar-Hazy Center, where Discovery is housed, is over 20 miles from the nearest river. The shuttle has a wingspan on the order of 7 lanes worth of highway, and there aren't any highways that are at least 7 lanes in one direction leaving Udvar-Hazy."
So Discovery walked there of its own accord, or was moved by telepathy?
If you'd bother to do even a basic modicum of research (or bothered reading other posts here) you'd find that it was FLOWN there on the back of a specialised 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (both of which are now decommissioned and no longer airworthy). The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center where Discovery now resides is right next to Dulles International Airport and even has a dedicated taxiway from the apron at the end of runway 1R to the center. That air transport is no longer an option, hence the need for barges. Please stop being intentionally dense
"And we know a 747 can carry a shuttle ?"
Well, yes, but only after said 747 has been structurally modified (read: heavily modified) to deal with the unusual weight distribution and stresses, and has been fitted with the mounts to hold the orbiter in place. These were specialized planes, known as SCA's (Shuttle Carrier Aircraft) and they have all been decommissioned so they're no longer available.
It's not like you can simply take a shuttle and duct tape it on top of a 747, or simply bolt it to the fuselage plating, of whatever old 747 you find at your local aircraft scrapyard. Flying a shuttle across state borders would mean to modify a 747 into another SCA. Which is not cheap, even if you start with a used 747.
It's not like you can simply take a shuttle and duct tape it on top of a 747
frankvw,
Blasphemy! How dare you!
This heretic has blasphemed against the holy name of Duct Tape! Our glorious saviour. The one true bond that holds the Universe together. Burn the heretic!
We know that dark matter is Duct Tape and dark energy is swearing. These are the two forces that balance the universe and keep stuff where it's supposed to be.
The type of tape is backed with duck cloth, which is why it's called duck tape. The brand 'duck tape' came along much later. Duct tape, which is something very different, is much more recent than duck tape, but basically as soon as it appeared people started confusing the two.
That site you've linked is 100% wrong. Wikipedia gets it about right, though ironically the page is for 'duct' tape. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duct_tape
Actually, the purpose of DOGE had nothing to do with saving money. It was about getting data out of various Federal agencies. That data is very valuable. It can be used commercially and politically. Such as using the mortgage application database to attack your opponents. Imagine having a system with all Federal data aggregated.
'Saving' money and dismantling agencies that annoyed the wonder twins was just a bonus. And a distraction to the true purpose. The reason we don't hear about DOGE anymore is because they have done the bulk of their work installing conduits to syphon data out of organizations like the IRS and Social Security.
... aways a possibility ;-)
There's been stories of entire *buildings* being relocated intact - let alone what amounts to a large plane.
Just tow the thing - make it a publicity tour. Pretty sure there would be some crowds on the highway.
If it could land from orbit it should be able to trundle down a road.
Or am I being stupid?
Look up how big things are transported. Look at the last time they transported a shuttle.
Now look at a map.
And while disassembling and rebuilding houses is done semi regularly (historic houses for living history museums in Europe, for example) many parts are replaced (wall plaster, wattle and daub fill ins) rather than reassembled. We do not want that with the shuttle.
Well, you know that pair of ginormous cranes that SpaceX use to build stuff at Starbase? I'm sure there's more of them around the USA. Build a couple big transporters that can straddle the load across the median and get under bridges/overpasses and have the cranes trundle down each side of the highway/freeway and pause at each bridge to lift the shuttle over and place back down on the transporter on the other side. I'm not sure how fast those cranes can travel at, so it might take a little while to reach the final destination. There may be other hazards to take into account as I'm not familiar with the routing options. My GPS doesn't have a routing option for Fucking Humongous Superwide Load and neither, it seems, does Google Maps.
Well, you did ask, so yes.
The orbiter is big. Transport by road without dismantling would be an epic task. The wingspan alone requires the width of over 6 US Interstate lanes. The tail isn't going to make it under most bridges.
Buildings can be moved short distances. But we don't move skyscrapers over 1000 miles.
Space Shuttle is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemists. But that's just peanuts to space Shuttle
[Coat icon, it's got 4 books in the pockets. Does anyone have a piece of fairy cake?]
Not "intact" -- not by a long shot -- but a story of moving a building...
I know of a medieval French chapel (Catholic). It was once disassembled stone-by-stone and moved to Long Island, New York. Then it was donated to a Catholic university and relocated again to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Each stone was meticulously labeled on 3 sides (minimum) with a systematic numbering scheme to aid in reconstruction. It has been expanded, re-roofed, and now has electric and HVAC and still holds Catholic masses -- the oldest building that is currently in North America (having predated all buildings built here) still used for its original purpose.
A shuttle orbiter, stripped down to truck-sized pieces (53-foot lorries)? If it were any other vehicle -- even a tank (*cough* I may have some experience there *cough*) -- this shouldn't be difficult thanks to modern nuts and bolts. But add that outer layer -- the tiles and thermal blankets -- and you have a shell that won't come off unless it's destroyed. No thanks; it's fine where it is.
"I know of a medieval French chapel (Catholic). It was once disassembled stone-by-stone and moved to Long Island, New York."
The London Bridge before the current one* was also disassembled and shipped to the US. It would have been bigger but not as old. Contrary to some stories, however appealing they might be, the buyer didn't think he'd bought Tower Bridge.
* Circumlocution to avoid calling it "old" as it wasn't Old London Bridge which was medieval.
There's a documentary about the moving of London Bridge.
It's even available on Youtube so here's a link
A couple of warnings though. It has a 15% audience rating from Rotten Tomatoes and a David Hasslehoff rating of 100%
When they took the bridge to America, they accidentally brought the ghost of Jack the Ripper...
"If it could land from orbit it should be able to trundle down a road."
It's too big. The width would be an issue and even if a bridgeless path could be found, that won't mean there won't be utility lines overhead that will have to be disconnected/relocated to allow it to pass. It's not a Cessna 140 where one can take the wings off and put them back with no problems. Any disassembly will cause irreparable damage although they aren't ever intended to be powered up again. Even with large passenger aircraft, things like removing an engine has to be done carefully with an equivalent mass suspended to keep wings from warping. A large assembly will tend to settle into a new form over time due to stresses and how it's fastened together.
To be fair it could land from orbit and trundle along the road - it's just that the landing speed is rather high and so it's likely to be a bit exciting for any other road users.
Overhead line disassembly is included when however many tons of shuttle arrive at 200km/h
Moving something that size is a more interesting question than most people seem to think.
I've worked with people who have moved obscenely large things (such as engines for very large ships, large and insanely heavy structural pieces that for whatever reason can't be fabricated on-site, etc.) across continents for obscenely large amounts of money. There is specialized trip planning software - it works very much like Google or Apple maps - that knows all about things like road widths, bridge heights, weight limits, axel count limits, etc., and will find a workable route if one exists - and they do exist more often than you might suspect. If you can't move it all the way in that manner, then you see if you can barge it to a relatively nearby port. There is a boutique industry that builds the necessary custom trailers, towing rigs, barge modifications, and so on. You need to arrange for cranes, hoists, jacks, or whatever to move your cargo from one mode of transport to another. You need to have a highly customized insurance policy written for the move. And the list goes on. But usually it can be done, and there are people who specialize in doing it.
If you want to see what a shuttle looks like on a trailer, there's a photo at this link:
https://www.edwards.af.mil/News/Photos/igphoto/2000190261/
...and looking at the Google Maps, it's about 54Km, across relatively flat, open dessert without a lot of structures or overhead assets in the way. If they trucked it non-stop, it was about 18 hours to make the trip. And it was the Enterprise, without engines and other components fitted. Not quite the same exercise as going from DC area to Texas. But sure, in theory, it 'can' be done.
Not as big as a shuttle orbiter, but the biggest move-by-road project I can remember from before the shuttle's retirement:
There is a pair of light rail transit tunnels (one each direction) drilled under the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport (US state of Minnesota). I remember when the biggest local paper covered the planned arrival of the tunnel boring machine's (TBM's) cutting head through the Great Lakes into Duluth harbor, then trucked on two side-by-side flatbed trailers using two semis/lorries with drivers in constant communication/coordination down Interstate 35 (probably with police escort the whole way), taking very specific interchanges/ramps due to the width required, to get it to the airport construction site.
I don't remember subsequent press coverage, but the logical plan would be to drill one tunnel, move it over, then drill the other. Although the tunnels meet surface at both ends, I believe they had a vertical launching shaft at the airport. Press also didn't cover the aftermath -- having to truck/ship it out to whatever project was next for that TBM.
The light rail line (MetroTransit's Hiawatha Line, later renamed the Metro Blue Line) partially opened in June 2002, with the airport tunnel and final portion later that year. I've been on it quite a bit those early years and through the tunnels many times.
"Press also didn't cover the aftermath -- having to truck/ship it out to whatever project was next for that TBM."
Did they actually get them out, or run them off to the side of the tunnel, remove as many bits as realistically possible and abandon the cutting head / chassis? This is sometimes done with tunnel boring machines where it's too difficult to get them out whole.
A long time ago...... We hired a very, very big crane to install major plant at a power station. Not only was the machinery heavy but the 'reach' was huge. The logistics to get the crane to site were incredible (it worked, I had nothing to do with it...). Apart from the motorway disruption (it took up two lanes), the routing to avoid (not so) low bridges, the convoy of several vehicles had to cross a city. To avoid bends in the road, the one-way system was temporarily reversed. It was quite a sight, there was even crowd-control. The major disruption took place at the weekend and it was generally agreed the exercise went very well.
We needed the crane for one week at an eye-watering day-rate: the saving in time would transform progress and save money. We increased our site manpower to smooth installation.
Once set up and ready to go, the crane-driver pointed out that the wind-speed was too high and we must wait for calmer weather...... Two weeks, no reduction in hire...... Our Project Manager had omitted to include insurance against inclement weather...... Going forward, he was forever haunted by the weather forecast.
"I've worked with people who have moved obscenely large things (such as engines for very large ships, large and insanely heavy structural pieces that for whatever reason can't be fabricated on-site, etc.) across continents for obscenely large amounts of money. "
Once when I was in California years ago, I came across the shipment of a dry casket being moved from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. Absolutely massive with tractors pulling AND pushing. They were parked for the day as they took up so much room on the road, they only traveled at night. I don't know where they were going. I had to make a panoramic image as I couldn't move back far enough to get the whole thing in one exposure.
It is a VERY VERY Big 'plane' (and heavy and with big 'sticky-out bits') ...
Bigger than roads you have available, all the way to Houston, and probably needs to pass under bridges etc.
In short ... cannot be done without major remodelling of the roads/buildings that will get in the way.
.
.
Alternative stupid solution:
Obtain 4 of the very largest helicopters.
Build strongest & lightest 'cradle' for Shuttle.
Place Shuttle in 'cradle' horizontally.
Pick up 'cradle' with 4 Helicopters. (One each corner)
'Hop' the shuttle to the destination, refuelling the helicopters as we go in a cycle of ... lift 'cradle', move forward, land 'cradle', land helicopters, refuel Helicopters ... repeat !!!
Possible if money is 'no object', landing points are pre-planned and Helicopters & pilots are available.
Go USA ... or is it now ... Heil Herr Trump ... one often misses the latest changes in the political landscape in the US of A !!!
:)
"Am I right to assume that Discovery was originally flown to its current location before the carrier 747s were decomissioned?"
Yes and both of those aircraft were decommissioned shortly after. I was at the Mojave Air and Space port when Endeavor was being flown from Edwards AFB on it's way to Los Angeles. They did a low pass over the flight line. I was also covering stories of Masten Space Systems and Xcor at the time. Scott Manley just did a story on Xcor and a bunch of the commetards there were founders/employees.
Thanks. I had sort of assumed that, and it probably explains Trump's thinking, "well, if they got it in without chopping it up they must be able to get it out."
On a related note, I always thought it was criminal that they had to take angle grinders to some of the Concordes too...
M.
A cottage industry magically appeared to disassemble and reassemble the SR-71 Blackbirds as they were heading to museums. The wing spars would be drilled and mounted with a patch piece. Then the spars would be cut - permanently rendering them unflyable. Transportation, and then the patch piece would be re-attached to hold the wing in place.
The whole premise was the SR-71 was assumed to be built in such a way that it could not be disassembled.
Museum curators later found cutting the wing spars was not actually necessary. The birds could have been disassembled enough for transport and then reassembled. The myth was widely propagated in the air museum community, driving business to the one company professing the methods for titanium cutting and patching. They made a lot of money for awhile.
Discovery's current location isn't that far from navigational waterways....which can take a barge right over to Houston. Take a look at how the Hughes H-4 Hercules (commonly know as the Spruce Goose) made it to Oregon back in the early 1990's. If a plane larger than a 747 could be transported this way, a much smaller space craft carried by a 747 could be transported as well. This can be done without a slice & dice.
We all well know that the only way to ship a painting is to cut it in little piece first, then put them in an enveloppe and ship it with appropriate postage.
I know this because I know paintings are shipped between museums all the time, and they wouldn't fit in the mailbox should they not be cut first. Ergo - DUH !!!
Does Herr Trump know there is a 'constitution' ... or is it just a word he hears a lot, which is ignored, like most words he does not understand !!!)
I believe he understands it to mean him taking a shit every day...more or less.
It was flown in from it's current location on the back of the original, purpose built Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (Modified Boeing 747) and very slowly and painstakingly moved from the airport to it's current location. Reversing THAT move would be possible, but once it's gotten to the airport it'll have nowhere to go. Both SCAs have been decommissioned and are not in any condition to fly. The one in Palmdale (Joe Davies Heritage Airpark) might be able to be made to fly again, but it was used as a parts source to keep SOPHIA flying (now also at the Heritage Airpark) so I don't see that happening. The other one is (ironically I think) already in Houston, with a replica shuttle on it's back
The problem is that the Shuttle would thus have to move to somewhere they can put it on a barge to ship it over water to Houston. And there is no route capable of taking a fully assembled, intact, shuttle from the Smithsonian to anywhere a large enough barge could get.
Admittedly this simple "solution" relies somewhat heavily on single sourced searches of t'internet......
Shuttle orbiter weight 78000KG dry (and I'm sure you could take out the stereo, the seats and that Canadian arm thingy to save a bit on that)
Hindenburg could apparently lift about 200 tonnes.....
Airlander 10 can lift 10 Tonnes (incredibly imaginative naming there) and has a highly amusing profile..... 8 of those and lots of string would do the job fine.
Or bung them some funds to create the Airlander 78...
Heck, for the ultimate Texan solution, you don't even need engines on the airship - just tow it cross country using horses (at ground level)
(Calcs on that bit - apparently a long narrow-boat could move 75 tons of coal with one english 'orse..... - so it's probably about 25 Texan hosses......)
Unfortunately the Cargolifter CL 160 - which was going to be able to lift 160 tonnes never got beyond the drawing board, although a hanger was built for it in Germany.
Interestingly, they did build a prototype CL75, but that got destroyed in a storm.
Perhaps, channelling some money into cargo airship development might be a good spend of some of that ~$120m and perhaps there would be a spin off business to show for it.
long narrow-boat could move 75 tons of coal with one english 'orse
That would be a barge not a narrow boat. About 25 tons on a motor boar and 30 on an unpowered towed butty or horse boat was the practical limit for most purposes (depending on the boat and waterway).
Idiocy, mostly. Misplaced "Pride", stupidity, lack of morals, superiority complex... take your pick.
The pricks that put this into law think Houston is somehow "more deserving" of displaying a real spaceshuttle than the Smithsonian institute (probably the worlds top class collection of historically significant air- and spacecraft, Kennedy Space Center (where the shuttles launched from) or California (where the shuttles were built). And they deemed the one in the Smithsonian easiest to steal through law-wrangling. They claim Houston was "snubbed" for not getting a real shuttle to display (even though the plan submitted to receive a shuttle at the time was extremely lackluster and lacked any sort of broad support even in Houston or amongst Texas politicians, whereas both California and Florida made very clear and thorough bids. Sending one to the Smithsonian was basically a foregone conclusion, what with aforementioned world class collection and conservation expertise).
It saddens me that I have not been able to visit the Smithsonian (and especially the F. Udvar-Hazy center) before the US went to shit, and because I have no interest in visiting the US now I might not get a chance to see Discovery in an unmolested state. I would refuse to visit Houston if they succeeded in forcing the move of Discovery and damaging it to do so.
Got it in One !!!
I also would have liked to visit the Smithsonian, some day.
So agree that the US of A is becoming a place you will visit 'sometime later' when the feds/police/'mall cops'/etc are less likely to arrest/shot you for 'Walking while not being American', or is that 'Republican' nowadays, particularly if you may have a 'darker' complexion !!!
I keep telling myself that it is only temporary ... BUT the changes are not likely to go away when Herr Trump does ... the American masses are split by Herr Trump and it will take time to recover, if it ever can !!!
:)
The pricks that put this into law think Houston is somehow "more deserving" of displaying a real spaceshuttle
They're politicians, it's in their nature. But the law doesn't specify a space shuttle, just something that's yeeted people above the Karman line. So other options are available, like buying or persuading the donation of one of Bezos bell-ends to Houston. Language in the big, beautiful bill is satisified and government can move on to wasting more money. Or government could (and should) just say "No". Options have been considered carefully, it's too expensive & too risky to try and move fragile and irreplaceable artefacts just so a 501(c)3 corp can have a new exhibit.
Plus it could be a good time to say "No" given the Democrats forced a government shutdown, which gives El Presidente even more powers to wield the red pen.
Money.
They see the people visiting the Smithsonian and say to themselves - I want some of that…
A laugh I have, from looking at some of the London tourist brochures, is that tourists could be excused for thinking that Stonehenge was in London and not so:e way outside. So perhaps a similar trick could be played here. Okay distances are greater, but I’m sure some marketing bod could convince people that the Smithsonian was in Texas…
Especially since the Smithsonian doesn't charge admission. Granted, the Udvar-Hazy Center has a $15 parking fee, but you can take a bus. The Space Center Houston location (which already contains Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules, on loan from the Smithsonian) charges $30 basic admission $25 for children 4-11 (if you book in advance).
"They see the people visiting the Smithsonian and say to themselves - I want some of that…"
It's not just the Shuttle, but they have an amazing collection of historic stuff that makes going there lots of value for money. Free to get in, but hotels are dear. Maybe I can win the lottery and take a train to visit again.
When one of the Russian Burans (Space Shuttle copy) was bought by a German museum (2008 apparently) and shipped down the Rhein from Rotterdam to the museum I remember watching it go past the office (on the banks of the Rhein) where I was working. They removed the vertical tail fin so it would fit under the bridges.
There's a photo of it on the barge here: https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/spectators-follow-a-barge-carrying-the-russian-space-news-photo/80560229
Have you read through this entire thread, which would have answered your question?
No you haven't have you? You’ve simply crashed in an existing thread made some sort of ‘drive-by' post and moved on!
Seriously, by all means post and contribute to threads and discussions, but please do read it through first and pitch you responses accordingly.
Was it dismantled when it was delivered to the Smithsonian? No? Then why would it need to be dismantled to move it elsewhere?
My question has nothing to do with whether it should be moved or not. I'm just wondering why it must be dismantled to remove it from the Smithsonian when it didn't require dismantling to install it there
"I'm just wondering why it must be dismantled to remove it from the Smithsonian when it didn't require dismantling to install it there"
There's an airstrip at the Udvar-Hazy facility and it was rolled into the hanger where it is on display. The carrier aircraft no longer fly and it would be tens of millions to convert a 747 that is flying into something suitable. The one in Los Angeles was a project to get through city streets to the museum. I can remember the videos and nail biting navigation. Endeavor is mounted vertically and they are slowly, ever so slowly, constructing the building around it at many times the price and half the quality of a comparable commercial building.
Makes sense. You'd think the reported would have included the why in the story. Without the why, it makes the Smithsonian look like crybabies. "Want to take it? FINE! (SOB) It's only leaving in pieces!" With the why, it would become a sensible response to an unreasonable request. Journalism seems to be on life support these days though.
Yes, yes, I could have looked it up myself, but that IS the story writer's job and it's time we start holding them to it.
I remember that one year during Klondike Days, an actual Mercury capsule and an actual Gemini capsule were brought to Edmonton, Alberta for people to see. So there are other flown space vehicles that could be moved without disassembly.
Also, while it wouldn't be possible to rebuild the aircraft used to transport a whole Space Shuttle at a practical cost, surely there is some way to carry one using a special truck on selected roads that are closed to other traffic and don't have obstacles like overpasses?
If not, while a giant heavier-than-air airplane big enough to carry a Space Shuttle is impractical... I think that a really big blimp, or even a really big hot air balloon, could be managed.
Even if it means dismantling the from and to buildings to make a big enough hole in the walls, surely that's easier. If the Norwegians can move Troll A (see https://equinor.industriminne.no/en/troll-a-giant-move-from-fjord-to-field/ The build started on land, see Wikipedia) then shurely the US can shove a fancy forklift under it and move it whole. This is the country that moves whole houses, don't forget.
Cut my shuttle into pieces
this is my last orbit...
I don't give a flying fornication if they take all three orbiters and throw them in the ocean, or fire them into the sun. The space shuttle is one of the most vile things EVER invented. The shuttle was less than 99% successful (2 orbiter losses in 135 missions) in a way that got a lot of people killed. Every shuttle launch had to be manned, unnecessarily increasing risk to human life. Covering up its myriad shortcomings became NASA management policy, which destroyed their safety culture, and again got a lot of people killed https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19860015255 and https://sma.nasa.gov/SignificantIncidents/assets/columbia-accident-investigation-board-report-volume-1.pdf. The number of near disasters that aren't remembered is also staggering, missing tiles, engine failures, foam flying everywhere, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZptbxaHBIA. I've seen kerbal players more responsible with the lives of their kerbals than the NASA administration was with their astronauts.
It gets worse. Not only was the shuttle unsafe at every speed (including many multiples of mach), it was overly complicated, disgustingly expensive to refurbish after each launch, and set the American space program back by about 20 years. Congress forced the US Government to use the Space Shuttle exclusively for launches until after the Challenger Disaster, which was essentially a snuff film pumped into every American grade school classroom. The mind-blowing expense of a shuttle launch drastically reduced the science payloads that could be sent to orbit because of the cost of the launch, which REDUCED scientific discovery.
Without the shuttle we probably would have reached Falcon 9 levels of reusability in the 1990's, and, according to NASA's own numbers, this slashed the cost to take cool things to orbit by over 95%. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20200001093. This means we could have done more and cooler science, and sent more and cooler things to orbit decades ago.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
