The guts of a Space Shuttle

3 responses to “The guts of a Space Shuttle”

1. 

   jurvetson

   Apr 11, 2012 at 1:25 am

   Substructure from the payload bay
   

   exposed to remove the tanks
   

   On the day of our visit, the fluids were drained from the orbiter, the point of no return for its decommissioning.

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2. 

   dankos

   Apr 13, 2012 at 3:55 am

   I keep reading that the "draining of the fluids" is the point of no return, but nobody really says why that is the case. I can imagine that it’s going to involve the removal of a lot of plumbing that handled toxic materials. Are the hydraulic systems going too? Hypergolics? Life support? Fuel cells? Do you think they’re going to be able to re-use any of this awesome hardware?

   I found this NASA document listing some of the nasty propellents and coolants used by the Orbiter, but it doesn’t really say much.

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3. 

   jurvetson

   Apr 13, 2012 at 4:14 am

   I’m guessing that the seals are all suspect when the fluids are gone, and many are buried throughout the substructure. The hypergolics and 14 lethal substances are all long gone.

   [http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeany7] — functionally similar, but Gemini/Apollo blazed the trail.

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