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  #11  
Old 01-27-2017, 01:38 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DeanHFox
A couple very interesting things about that Vandy pic of the Enterprise ---

First --- I like the fact that they left the Payload Bay Door supports/lift bars in place. Makes you wonder how those would have been removed in "operational" flights.

Second --- the top segment of the starboard SRB has quite a lot of markings/etc. --- I don't believe I've seen that much "clutter" on a shuttle SRB in other pictures. Anyone know anything about it?

It's also interesting to me, that by the time they were doing these Vandy fit checks and such, that the ET's had changed over to their "unpainted" variant. I'm so used to seeing Enterprise with an "all white stack" in her pictures that seeing her with a brown ET jarred me.


As for the second thing, I do not know what the heck all that stuff was either on the "Forward Skirt" (It was a structural piece, rocket motor under it, which carried the vertical thrust loads from the SRB to a structural thrust carrying crossbeam running thru the ET intertank (the aft attachments between ET and SRB's were struts to hold them laterally in parallel alignment, and allowed for tank shrinkage when fueled, those carried no thrust loads). That Forward Skirt also had various electronics, guidance, and other equipment inside of it).

Looks mostly like tape, which may have been holding a lot of temporary sensor wires in place, just for that pad stacking. Not the kind of stuff it would have flown with. BTW the yellow rectangle was a "remove before flight" item covering the side access hatch. No shuttle ever flew with those yellow covers in place, never mind so many kit decals that included them.

As for Enterprise and white ET's....... it was only ever ONE specific white ET. The same structural prototype ET that was used for the vibration testing in 1978 was also taken to KSC for the stacking there in 1979. AFAIK, that ET is still at KSC, deteriorating away outdoors (Possibly it was saved for use as a ET/SRB display stack but I am not sure).

So, the stacking at Vandenberg was the only time Enterprise was stacked with a flight-worthy ET.
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Last edited by georgegassaway : 01-28-2017 at 12:55 AM.
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  #12  
Old 01-27-2017, 03:20 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by georgegassaway
As for the second thing, I do not know what the heck all that stuff was either on the "Forward Skirt" (It was a structural piece, rocket motor under it, which carried the vertical thrust loads from the SRB to a structural thrust carrying crossbeam running thru the ET intertank (the aft attachments between ET and SRB's were struts to hold them laterally in parallel alignment, and allowed for tank shrinkage when fueled, those carried no thrust loads). That Forward Skirt also had various electronics, guidance, and other equipment inside of it).

Looks mostly like tape, which may have been holding a lot of temporary sensor wires in place, just for that pad stacking. Not the kind of stuff it would have flown with. BTW the yellow rectangle was a "remove before flight" item covering the side access hatch. No shuttle ever flew with those yellow covers in place, never mind so many kit decals that included them.

As for Enterprise and white ET's....... it was only ever ONE ET. The same structural prototype ET that was used for the vibration testing in 1978 was also taken to KSC for the stacking there in 1979. AFAIK, that ET is still at KSC, deteriorating away outdoors (Possibly it was saved for use as a ET/SRB display stack but I am not sure).

So, the stacking at Vandenberg was the only time Enterprise was stacked with a flight-worthy ET.
Thanks for the info, George! I learn something new every day.
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  #13  
Old 01-27-2017, 04:11 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DeanHFox
Second --- the top segment of the starboard SRB has quite a lot of markings/etc. --- I don't believe I've seen that much "clutter" on a shuttle SRB in other pictures. Anyone know anything about it?

The top segment doesn't have anything on it other than the yellow access hatch. It looks like a segment that has been refurbished and has primer on it. It looks like green primer like you see on a lot of aircraft during manufacture. I'll see if I can find a higher res photo.

Edit to add photo links (high res so links only)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...ST-86-00717.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...ST-99-05106.jpg
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  #14  
Old 01-28-2017, 01:01 AM
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Thanks for looking up other pics. That first one is REALLY good.

Looks to me more like that right hand Forward Skirt had some crudely-sprayed green paint or whatever it is. So rather than being old "primer" that was sanded down into, I think it was new green sprayed on top of the original white.

Well, then other times I look at it and do wonder if it was sanded down, exposing old primer.

So now I'm 50-50 about which it may have been (Maybe should say 49-49 to allow for a 2% chance of something else)

Very odd, no idea what they'd be doing that for.

Randy, I hope you have good luck finding your old MSF Open House pics. Never mind the date, I'd love to see some pics from then. All I had at the time was a 110 camera with sorta crappy image quality. But even so I wish I still had my old pics from then.

IIRC, that structural test white ET's nose (Oxygen tank) had a slight dent in it. A MSFC employee explained they were draining water ballast from it one day but somebody failed to open a vent valve. So as the water drained out, a vacuum was created , then the side of the ET nose started to buckle inwards. A slight inward dent remained. Good thing that was never intended for flight (It may not even have had any foam insulation).
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  #15  
Old 01-28-2017, 04:35 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by georgegassaway
Thanks for looking up other pics. That first one is REALLY good.

Looks to me more like that right hand Forward Skirt had some crudely-sprayed green paint or whatever it is. So rather than being old "primer" that was sanded down into, I think it was new green sprayed on top of the original white.

Well, then other times I look at it and do wonder if it was sanded down, exposing old primer.

So now I'm 50-50 about which it may have been (Maybe should say 49-49 to allow for a 2% chance of something else)

Very odd, no idea what they'd be doing that for.

Randy, I hope you have good luck finding your old MSF Open House pics. Never mind the date, I'd love to see some pics from then. All I had at the time was a 110 camera with sorta crappy image quality. But even so I wish I still had my old pics from then.

IIRC, that structural test white ET's nose (Oxygen tank) had a slight dent in it. A MSFC employee explained they were draining water ballast from it one day but somebody failed to open a vent valve. So as the water drained out, a vacuum was created , then the side of the ET nose started to buckle inwards. A slight inward dent remained. Good thing that was never intended for flight (It may not even have had any foam insulation).


At first I thought it was where they sanded down to primer, then found the high resolution shots and decided the primer has been freshly applied.

It may be a flown/tested skirt section that was rejected for reuse before refurbishing was complete. I guess it's even possible that they didn't have enough finished ones for the mockup and used a flight worthy one that hadn't been completely refurbished. Only the USBI folks and the local NASA and USAF guys know for sure.

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  #16  
Old 01-28-2017, 07:28 PM
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I was stationed at Vandenberg AFB from 1997 to 2000 with the then 30th Range Squadron. I got to see the grooves that were cut in the rock roadsides for the shuttle's wings and the lowered roadsigns for the wings to pass over. An amazing project for the somewhat ill-fated SLC-6 launch site.
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  #17  
Old 02-04-2017, 02:19 AM
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While googling for something entirely different, I found some photos of Enterprise when it was flown into MSFC. Via this link.

http://tinyurl.com/j3r99pr

Most if not all of these were public domain NASA photos or possibly US Army (Redstone Arsenal) photos. Getty gets to sleazily "copyright" them, so I could not get hi-res copies.

So, what I did was take screenshots and enlarge by 150%.

i'm most happy for THIS one. When I said they did a low flyby, and not far away, I was not kidding! I'm in that crowd somewhere, running my old Super-8 camera, so surprised and happy that they were flying by!!!



MSFC didn't have a fancy mate/demate device like NASA did at Edwards and the Cape. Since they'd only ever do that one time at MSFC. So they had a sorta precarious looking crane set-up, but at least it worked fine with no accident. I wonder if they later sent those cranes to White Sands since that was an alternate landing site. And actually White Sands was used one time when the lakebed at Edwards AFB was flooded, and since it was only the 3rd mission (STS-3) NASA was not ready to commit to the more limited confines of concrete runway landings yet.



And then they moved on down, moved on down, the road......





Too bad there's nothing on the GoogleNets of the MSFC Open Houses with Enterprise , ET, and SRB parts on display.
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Last edited by georgegassaway : 02-04-2017 at 02:43 AM.
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  #18  
Old 02-04-2017, 09:14 AM
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That was a tight squeeze with the electric pole on the left prior to the intersection on that last pic.

Interesting that the regular power line runs right next to the road and another one parallels it 150 ft off the road. Probably a TVA line (does TVA supply Huntsville?)
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  #19  
Old 02-04-2017, 03:49 PM
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TVA supplies electricity to northern Alabama (Tennessee Valley). The difference between north and south Alabama is that in north Alabama, the rivers and creeks all flow into the Tennessee River, then into the Ohio River and finally into the Mississippi River into the the Gulf of Mexico. In south Alabama, all the water flows directly into the Gulf of Mexico without the northbound trip through Tennessee and Kentucky. Note that this statement was true until the completion of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway which allow a shortcut to the Gulf.
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  #20  
Old 02-08-2017, 04:41 PM
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CRAP!!!

"Tornado destroys first NASA space shuttle external tank to stand on launch pad"

http://www.collectspace.com/news/ne...ernal-tank.html





SIGH.

This was the white structural test ET that has been discussed in this thread. Stacked for vibration testing at MSFC, Open Houses at MSFC, and later stacked at KSC.

It was later returned to Michoud, LA, where it was built.


Quote:
The ground vibration test article, separated into its interstage and liquid oxygen and hydrogen tanks, as seen in 2015 at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Dennis Jenkins)
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