Space Shuttle At Edwards AFB
So, one of the benefits of where I work is that I get to see some cool stuff. I mean, I do work at Edwards AFB, where the Air Force Flight Test Center is, and the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center is. Those two things together mean I get to see some of the coolest planes around. One of the things I sometimes get to see is the Space Shuttle. And I don't mean on display, but for real. As just came from orbit. So, for those of you who haven't had an opportunity to see a Shuttle Recovery, I'll describe it.
I got lucky. Our program has this 6- or 7-story tower that we use. It's got a big antenna on the top, but the level below has a full floor. So I got to get about 6 stories above the ground about a quarter mile from the runway. Here's where some other people are hanging out to see the shuttle come in. See how small the look?
So, you need to get there a little early to get a good view. I was there about an hour before it arrived, so I got a choice spot. One of the people I work with brought a camera with a 600mm lens on it. That thing was nice. I just had my wimpy 6.3 megapixel camera. I managed to get some decent shots, but I'm going to ask my friend to give me a copy of his so I can post them too.
Anyway, right up until about 5 minutes before it lands nothing's happening except for the ground crew getting ready. There's this huge procession of cars and trucks that go out to the runway just incase something bad happens. It's not very exciting, but it's interesting to see all the stuff they have.
I hope we don't need you guys!
Then at about that 5 minute mark, you hear a very loud double boom. BOOMBOOM!!! That's the sonic boom that the shuttle makes, and it is a double boom is caused because the shuttle is so long. Both the nose and the tail make booms, and because the shuttle is 122 ft long, the booms happen about 0.5 seconds apart. When everyone hears that, all eyes go to the sky. The shuttle is still going crazy fast, so it's also going down crazy fast too. The first glimpse you get will be a little speck way up high. We were fortunate that it made contrails as it went though some moist air.
I could actually see it at this point, but the camera wasn't so great. It does this really big loop as it descends, so you can see it turn it's bright white side toward you. As it does all that, you can hear this loud wind howl from the shuttle (literally) screaming through the air. I managed to get a good shot of it as it was on it's turn to final approach.
As it came closer and closer, it kept falling just as fast. As it slows, the wind noise goes away, but at this point you can see it really well. Once it lined up on final, you could make out a little more detail. I could make out the white and black sides, and you can see the gear come out when it's nice and close to the ground. As it gets closer to the runway, you start to see how dirty the thing gets from reentry.
Now things start to happen fast. For us at least. I'm sure it's all to fast for those guys in the Shuttle. The thing is booking, and travels down the runway quite fast. Lucky for us, our spot was perfect. We were lined up quite nicely for touchdown, and you could see some great details right there. It's amazing to think about all that it went though to get to this point, and here it is about a quarter mile away. Wow.
I was about a half a second too early with that shot.
Anyway, it keeps on trucking and zipping down the runway. After a while it pops the chute and rolls to a stop. The main runway at Edwards AFB is almost 15,000 ft long. That's a little under three miles, and it uses up most of it. You can see how far down it goes in the next couple shots.
Finally it comes to a stop and all those trucks chase after it. Fortunately most of them aren't needed. (Those are the crash crew.) But once it's done, it just sits there. The support people need to come over and let the crew out. So while it was sitting there, I started to head out. The road out has this big curve in it and it gets significantly closer to the Shuttle than I was in the tower, so I took another picture of it.
That was quite a sight to see, and I had a great view. I'm going to ask my friend for copies of his pictures to see if I can post them. They should be much nicer. So look back in a bit to see if I can get them. So now I need to get off my rear and build my space shuttle model that I have. That was just too cool.
Post Flight
After the Shuttle was towed back to Dryden, they put it in the Mate-Demate Device for post flight maintance and to prep it for it's flight on the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. While it's in there, you don't get too good a view of the whole ship, but it's size is impressive.
The Space Shuttle in the Mate-Demate Device
Obviously, Edwards and NASA Dryden invited everyone over to come see the Shuttle while they were working on it. They said everyone was invited, and that to go to the base theater and a bus will come to pick groups up. I figured it wouldn't be too bad, and that I would only have to wait about 20 minutes at most. Boy was I wrong. The line at the start time was very long. And to top that off, two busses had already come to pick people up!
I ended up waiting for about an hour before I could get on a bus. But after that, it went much more smoothly. They were also in the process of getting more busses for everyone when I got on my bus, so people didn't have to wait as long. The drive isn't that far, and they got us pretty close.
It was still pretty neat to see it even though it was stuffed into that huge metal skeleton. They had all sorts of tubes and pipes hooked up to it, feeding electricty, nitrogen, and who knows what esle. I think they had to make sure all the hazardus materials were cleaned out/off before they could put it on the 747. It was actually lifted a couple feet off the ground at this point, and you can almost see that in the next picture.
When you looked closer at the shuttle, you could see that some of the thermal blankets and other coverings had been recently replaced. I imagine they go through a lot of those in the lifetime of the shuttle.
I was hoping to at least get to see the engines on the back end, but the shroud was already on. That's ok though. This is the third Shuttle I've seen, so I wasn't too dissapointed. The other two were Enterprise in the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center by the Washington Dulles International Airport. The other was Pathfinder at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL. I've been lucky to see all these cool space related sites, and I was very happy to get to watch the Shuttle land at Edwards.