6 ms·
Space Shuttle Time Lapse (Hangar to Launch)
- rglovejoy 16y agoExcellent video! Some music would have been a nice accompaniment. Perhaps something light and fun like Vivaldi's Spring or Copland's Rodeo.
- JaretManuel 16y agoGreat point. Maybe you should get on that :) If you do, please inform me. Thanks.
- Sukotto 16y agoPlease no. If I want music, I'll play my own.
- ugh 16y agoIt’s pretty obvious that the Vehicle Assembly Building [1] wasn’t built for something as – uhm – small as the Space Shuttle :) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_Assembly_Building http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_Assembly_Building
- junklight 16y agowas watching thinking "ho hum". Until the crane lifted the space shuttle. That is one serious crane. Like you say - the shuttle is kind of swamped by that shed. That is some heavy duty machinery they have there
- tricky 16y agoyeah, i was all proud of myself for hosting a new engine in my car last weekend and getting everything lined up and bolted together. Thought it was an impressive feat. Now, not so much.
- zwieback 16y agoI didn't have an engine puller so a friend helped me lift the engine out of my Spitfire to replace the clutch. When I put the engine back in another guy helped me and we almost dropped the engine and both got major back pain. I realized that friend 1 must have done 75% of the lifting. Next time: engine puller.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- tricky 16y agoyep, engine hoists are v. necessary. Also, always rent a drywall lift when doing ceilings.
- hugh3 16y agoIf you think that's a serious crane, check out this bastard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taisun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taisun The space shuttle orbiter weighs 109 tons. The Taisun can lift twenty thousand tons.
- junklight 16y agoblimey! Yes - that is mental. All over the world people believe all kinds of rubbish. But engineers look at things and say "I know how to do that" or "why don't you do this" - and you end up with stuff like this. Fantastic!
- rbanffy 16y agoI always wondered if it would be possible to take the SSMEs out of the shuttle and mount it on top of a larger booster vehicle that could also be used to lift non-reusable craft. A couple of SSME-class engines on the bottom of that tank, with two or four SRBs around it would make for a very serious launcher. BTW, that's the idea behind the Jupiter boosters the DIRECT folks were proposing.
- quux 16y agoIIRC Nasa seriously investigated building a vehicle like this, but found that SSMEs were way too expensive for use in a disposable rocket. There are other engines that will do the job and are much cheaper.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- rbanffy 16y agoTrue. The SSMEs are more complex and expensive than disposable engines. IIRC there is no large cargo vehicle in the current NASA plans. That's a bit sad. I won't be able to take my son to watch a shuttle launch and it's very likely he won't be able to take his kids to watch anything the same size.
- InclinedPlane 16y agoWhy do you imagine that NASA is the only entity capable of such a thing?
- rbanffy 16y agoI don't see much demand for launchers that large. While the LEO payload capacity of a shuttle is large, comparable to, say, a Delta IV Heavy or the largest (not yet flown, AFAIK) Angara, the total vehicle weight is much larger. A shuttle launch is equivalent of hauling 100 tons to LEO (30 of payload and 70 of shuttle). That's some serious fireworks.
- hugh3 16y agoThe Vehicle Assembly Building is an amazing sight, but is it also an example of how infinite budgets lead to non-optimal solutions? SpaceX, who tend to be a lot more budget-conscious, assemble their rockets lying down and then hoist them to vertical, thusly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrAr4ovtf9Q&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrAr4ovtf9Q&feature=relat... That seems a lot easier and cheaper. I'm tempted to think that maybe there's some factor that makes it more difficult to engineer a rocket that can handle sideways stresses as well as vertical stresses, but... heck, it's a rocket, they shouldn't be that fragile, should they?
- gambling8nt 16y agoThe launch vehicles themselves may not be that fragile, but payloads often are. Multimillion-dollar satellites can be damaged or completely non-functional from effects as small as being dropped 1 meter (see http://www.spacetoday.net/Summary/2230 http://www.spacetoday.net/Summary/2230 , for example).
- hugh3 16y agoDropping 1m onto a hard floor is a lot worse than being slowly hoisted from horizontal to vertical. If you disagree, I'll ride on the hoist and you can fall 1m headfirst onto concrete.
- gambling8nt 16y agoIf the bolts holding the payload in place shear away under the lateral force of supporting the payload, the payload may fall and hit the hard inside of the launch vehicle, making the two events quite similar. (Indeed, the original drop I linked to occurred when the satellite was not correctly bolted to a table on which is was going to be tipped to one side in order to verify that it could withstand the stress of being in that physical orientation.) That said, ugh's comment suggests my reasoning (as an explanation for vertical assembly) is either incorrect, incomplete, or both.
- 16y ago
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- JaretManuel 16y agoyou're right. Need to Fix. Not / Hot / Nitpick :)
- AGorilla 16y agoHangar: hot or not?
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- hernan7 16y agoSorry to nitpick, but: Hanger: http://www.google.com/images?q=hanger http://www.google.com/images?q=hanger Hangar: http://www.google.com/images?q=hangar http://www.google.com/images?q=hangar
- hugh3 16y agoAnd if anyone else was wondering, as I just was, why it's called a hangar, apparently it's from a word for "shed" in some dialect of French. The word itself is probably Germanic in origin. And it has absolutely nothing to do with hanging, which makes sense because you don't hang things in a hangar anyway.
- ugh 16y agoIt’s from “Haim” and “gard”. “Haim” means basically house (and the word “Heim” for “Home” still exists in German) and “gard” means something like garden or protected area.
- JaretManuel 16y agoNo need to be sorry. It was my screw up. I fixed on my post but I am not able (that I know of) to fix the Hacker News Submit. /Nit Pick away as it is my bad! Thanks.
- zwieback 16y agoI did notice that throughout the clip a lot of guys were just standing around chatting with their hands in their pockets.
- commieneko 16y agoGreat time lapse movie. No, really great. Made my day. But... It would have been even _better_ if it had used _The Blue Danube_ for background music. Especially as it was being hoisted on the crane. Edit: I just tried this by finding a _Blue Danube_ movie on Youtube and playing it in the background while re-watching the movie. It should be a _crime_ not to try this. Some interesting serendipities in timing, especially involving violin solos and the cable top shot sequence. I'll try _Dark Side of the Moon_ next...
- JaretManuel 16y agoIf you do Dark Side of the Moon please, send it. Awesome call.
- commieneko 16y agoFor references and historical purposes... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpvOUnz4T7Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpvOUnz4T7Q
- _fool 16y agoif for you as for me the video never actually loaded (VIDEO AVAILABLE SOON), i believe this to be the same video, which loaded instantly for me: http://www.airspacemag.com/multimedia/videos/Go-For-Launch.html http://www.airspacemag.com/multimedia/videos/Go-For-Launch.h...