![]() ![]() The Lone Star Flight Museum, located in southeast Houston, near Johnson Space Center, agreed to become the new home for the simulator and provide adequate space for a public display. With their help, the pieces soon began to fall into place for Dunbar. This would not have happened without Bonnie." "It was an artifact that needed to be preserved. "Starting in 1976, every crew that flew on the shuttle onward trained on this simulator," Abbey said. This "Friends of the Simulator" committee began searching for a final home while raising money to move and restore the simulator. Dunbar was tasked with finding a suitable home for the simulator.Īfter it became clear that Texas A&M did not have the space to refurbish and display the artifact, she enlisted the help of two Houston space legends, former Johnson Space Center directors George Abbey and Gerry Griffin. She had the right blend of expertise as an astronaut and curator, having served as president and CEO of The Museum of Flight in Seattle from 2005 to 2010. It remained there until Dunbar became a professor of engineering at Texas A&M in 2016. The simulator had to be moved into a smaller storage area not amenable to reconstruction work. Unfortunately, shortly after this, the university unexpectedly lost control of this building. Upon reaching the university, the simulator was put into a large building on campus with enough room to reassemble the simulator and put it on display. The bulky simulator, with its extended runs of cables, had to be disassembled for the trip. The chair of the aerospace engineering department at Texas A&M, Dimitris Lagoudas, led the effort to raise $500,000 and move the simulator to the university's campus in 2012. Texas A&M University sought to keep the full-motion space shuttle simulator, however. Precious little of the shuttle actually remained in Texas, where the program was managed and its astronauts were trained. ![]() If you wanted to go into space, you had to pass the training in the motion simulator."Īfter the space shuttle was retired in 2011, artifacts from the program were sent across the country to various museums. It would vibrate as if you were going through a launch and landed like a shuttle entry. "It was absolutely identical to what we flew," says Bonnie Dunbar, a former NASA astronaut who launched on the space shuttle five times from 1985 to 1998. And even though the simulator was firmly on the ground, anchored inside Building 5 at Johnson Space Center, it offered one hell of a ride. x 122 ft., 161325lb.Every NASA astronaut who ever rode aboard the space shuttle, more than 350 of them, first sat in its full-motion simulator. McDonnell Space Hangar Credit Line Transferred from National Aeronautics and Space Administration Data Source National Air and Space Museum Inventory Number A20120325000 Type SPACECRAFT-Crewed Restrictions & Rights CC0 Materials Airframe: aluminum alloys, titanium Surface: silica tiles, reinforced carbon carbon RCC nose cap and wing leading edges Interior: many materials (aluminum, fabric, beta cloth, velcro, etc.) Dimensions Overall: 24.314m x 17.768m x 38.03m, 73176.5kg (78 ft. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA Hangar James S. Manufacturer Rockwell International Corporation Country of Origin United States of America See more items in National Air and Space Museum Collection Location Steven F. From 1984 to 2012, Discovery flew 39 Earth-orbital missions, spent a total of 365 days in space, and traveled almost 240 million km (150 million mi) -more than the other orbiters. Alternate Name Space Shuttle Discovery Key Accomplishment(s) Champion of the Shuttle Fleet Brief Description Discovery was the third Space Shuttle orbiter to fly in space. ![]() NASA transferred Discovery to the Smithsonian in April 2012 after a delivery flight over the nation's capital. Named for renowned sailing ships of exploration, Discovery is preserved as intact as possible as it last flew in 2011 on the 133rd Space Shuttle mission. Because Discovery flew every kind of mission the Space Shuttle was meant to fly, it embodies well the 30-year history of U.S. It shuttled 184 men and women into space and back, many of whom flew more than once, for a record-setting total crew count of 251. Discovery flew on 39 Earth-orbital missions, spent a total of 365 days in space, and traveled almost 240 million kilometers (150 million miles)-more than the other orbiters. It entered service in 1984 and retired from spaceflight as the oldest and most accomplished orbiter, the champion of the shuttle fleet. Object Details Summary Discovery was the third Space Shuttle orbiter vehicle to fly in space. ![]()
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