Atlantis shuttle final voyage

Jay Griffin

Jay Griffin

Well-known member
Today NASA is moving the last remaining shuttle, Atlantis for the final time. It will be towed from the VAB out to the Visitors Center, the 'rocket ranch' as most of out here call it. They have a brand new VERY large building they are almost finished with to display it in.

The route they are taking to get it there is pretty convoluted, one that my co-workers and I have been discussing for sometime wondering how the hell they were going to accomplish without taking down some walls, gates or light poles. One of the cool things about the route they're taking is the temporary stop that will be made this morning from 10-10:30. Directly in front of the building I've been working in for over 30 years. Even though I've been around all of them over the years in the OPFs, the VAB and the pads...I'll more than likely be out there walking around with the crowd during that time.

NASA is making a big deal out of this too, the entire two plus blocks of open field in front of our building is cordoned off for press and employees to gather for it.

There's also a live video link (which has already started) here: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html?param=public

They just rolled it out of the VAB about 30 minutes ago.
 
When we lived in Clear Lake, near Houston, they would occasionally fly over and land at Ellington Field, about 3 air miles away. "Houston Control" was about 10 minutes from us. Lots of NASA neighbors. I really enjoyed it. I worked in a different industry, a lot slower, but we could handle a much larger amount of cargo. Worked for Sea Land, container shipping.

When I received a call from NASA, the caller had to convince me his questions were not a practical joke. I then had the opportunity to develop a feasability study for bringing the shuttle from Spain back the the U.S. on the deck of one of the container ships. Huge volume for the shuttle, with very little relative weight, it would have occupied about 3 or 4 hatches above decks. Spain was one of the potential landing sites used by NASA.
 
gtpilot":1q10fl9l said:
They are playing some Stevie Ray Vaughn right now...just for your Jay!

Kirk
Click to expand...

8) :mrgreen:

Unfortunately I missed it, I had to go meet a tech on a job. But I did go out to the street they were taking it down and took a video of it going by. Wingtip pretty much went right over our heads. :)
 
That's really cool! When the shuttle had the fly-over DC earlier this year for delivery to the Udvar-Hazy Air & Space Museum, it was a huge deal where I work in Northern VA. A bunch of us went a block away to the local shopping mall, top of the parking garage, and we had the perfect view. They flew so close, it was amazing.

My father worked for NASA at HQ in DC but went to the Cape and then Houston for each of the launches. Retired in '81 IIRC. He worked on the early designs of the shuttle, but had retired before they really became a big thing.
 
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