Pilot’s Seat of Space Shuttle Endeavour

17 responses to “Pilot’s Seat of Space Shuttle Endeavour”

1. 

   jurvetson

   Apr 6, 2012 at 5:03 am

   compared to the huge VMS simulator at NASA Ames earlier… Many fewer buttons there!
   where I tried to buzz the tower (video)

   This is my favorite photo of Endeavour, which I took at 1am the night before launch:
   
   I had to climb the Reuters remote camera ladder; otherwise there is a fence in the foreground which obscures the bottom of the view. It is the same patch of fence through which the families of the quarantined astronauts shared their final pre-flight sentiments moments before. That evening, they took a bit longer than usual.

   Reply
2. 

   scleroplex

   Apr 6, 2012 at 5:19 am

   very very special indeed!
   am happy you had this chance.

   Reply
3. 

   rjp1965

   Apr 6, 2012 at 5:47 am

   Love the photo taken from the Reuters ladder. Simply majestic. Makes me feel like a 10 year old boy filled with dreams and wonderment.

   Reply
4. 

   cameoskal

   Apr 6, 2012 at 6:04 am

   Wow.so cool !!

   Reply
5. 

   Dr DAD (Daniel A D’Auria MD)

   Apr 6, 2012 at 10:56 am

   Actually thought that might be a photo of you in your office! Figured that by now you had put together a large enough collection of space memorabilia to build your own shuttle!

   Reply
6. 

   BillS49

   Apr 6, 2012 at 12:51 pm

   I’m speachless, amazed and very sad…

   Reply
7. 

   solerena

   Apr 6, 2012 at 1:08 pm

   A truly incredible life!

   Reply
8. 

   m.p.moody

   Apr 6, 2012 at 2:46 pm

   awesome

   Reply
9. 

   momof3xx

   Apr 6, 2012 at 4:13 pm

   the (almost) perfect day! Enjoy!!

   Reply
10. 

    Chucil

    Apr 6, 2012 at 6:49 pm

    Looking forward to welcoming Endeavour to California. Make it home here at the California Science Center in Los Angeles.

    Reply
11. 

    msamaclean ©

    Apr 7, 2012 at 2:08 am

    See you when you land!…;-P

    Reply
12. 

    Pieces of Eye

    Apr 7, 2012 at 4:54 am

    awesome!

    Reply
13. 

    solerena

    Apr 11, 2012 at 3:08 am

    just saw this today, funny:

    http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=286070651472460&se…

    Reply
14. 

    jurvetson

    Apr 28, 2012 at 12:50 am

    EveryScape has finished the stitching of my fisheye shots into a virtual tour. Before you start, remember to click the full screen button in the bottom right corner of the main image. Then you can click on the image and drag to look up down and all around. When you see an orange arrow, you can zoom to the neighboring room. OK here is the VR tour of Endeavour, starting with this Flight Deck.

    And here’s a flickr post showing what the input images looked like for the flight deck and links to the other areas.

    Reply
15. 

    rocketmavericks

    Oct 2, 2012 at 5:19 am

    Little known factoids about the Shuttlecontrols.

    1. In all aircraft, the left seat is the pilot’s seat, the right seat is the co-pilots. On the Shuttle however, the pilot is called the commander, and the co-pilot is called the pilot.
    Either way, the Shuttle, like all aircraft is flown from the left seat.

    2.When you fly it, however, the stick is a little different. While it has roll and elevator authority, it works as normal and you use the rudders to steer (Yaw), just like a regular airplane. But the stick is not solid, but the handle pitches forward and back to control thrusters for attitude, right and left for thrusters to control roll, and twists left and right to control thrusts for yaw. These work when you have no control surface authority in orbit to maneuver the space craft

    3. The kicker is the instrumentation, because it has a 360 degree 3 DOF rotating attitude indicator, as you can yaw, roll, and pitch in 360 degrees around any of the 3 axis, unlike a regular airplane. Blew my mind when I got flight instruction in it from Commander Precourt back in May. You just can not do that in an airplane without changes in altitude or getting cross-controlled.

    My big question I forgot to ask was: What is all the blue velcro for on the instrumentation panel? Steve??

    Reply
16. 

    jurvetson

    Oct 2, 2012 at 3:26 pm

    I thought it was to hold cue cards and checklists in flight.

    But many of the positions look like they are for protective covers. My Soyuz and Mir hardware has covers like this. The Mir control panel has velcro tabs and hand screws since none of the deorbit and emergency separation buttons should not be touched during launch. In orbit, the thumb screws are loosened, but the velcro’d cover can still protect the emergency switches from seeing accidental contact.

    Reply
17. 

    dramatic trucks

    Jan 21, 2018 at 3:33 am

    Whenever the ship was "powered up" a "Space Craft Operator" SCO was onstation ( monitoring command channel 132 of 400 possible channels) on the flight deck. He occupied the CDR position and was referred to as that when communicating with the Orbitor Test Conductor and his support team. The deck was much darker than in the photo, the only lighting provided was the awkward OSHA approved florescent drop lighting. "Electrical Power Distribution" EPD at launch control would monitor and log electrical parameters during the time. A rookie operator aka "cabin boy" would always be asked to switch on the back lighting which is pretty impressive in a dark cockpit when giving a tour only to be contacted over command channel by the main man the OTC to switch off the lights !

    Reply