Reuters: Science News: Last NASA space shuttle becomes museum exhibit

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Last NASA space shuttle becomes museum exhibit Nov 2nd 2012, 17:16 1 of 10. The space shuttle Atlantis rolls down Kennedy Parkway on its way to its new home at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Cape Canaveral, Florida in this handout photo supplied by NASA November. 2, 2012. The spacecraft travelled 125,935,769 miles during 33 space flights, including 12 missions to the International Space Station. Its final flight, STS-135, closed out the Space Shuttle Program era with a landing on July 21, 2011. Credit: Reuters/Bill Ingalls/NASA/Handout By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Fri Nov 2, 2012 1:16pm EDT CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA's last space shuttle rolled out of a hangar on Friday and travelled down the road to the Kennedy Space Centre Visitor Complex to begin a new life as a museum piece. Atlantis is the third and final shuttle to be retired and turned over for public display after the end of the 30-year-old shuttle program last year. "Don't cry because it's over. Smile because we had it," shuttle manager Patty Stratton told workers gathered before dawn outside the Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building. The 1960s-era Apollo complex, later used to pair shuttles with booster rockets and fuel tanks for flight, now stands empty. Kennedy Space Centre is in the midst of a transition to support a planned heavy-lift rocket and deep space capsule that can fly astronauts to destinations beyond the International Space Station's 250-mile orbit. NASA intends to turn over station crew ferry flights to private companies. For now, Russia has the only transportation system to fly astronauts to the station, a service that costs the United States more than $60 million per seat. Mounted on top of a 76-wheel flatbed trailer, Atlantis began its final journey before dawn on a clear and cool autumn day at the seaside Florida spaceport. Several stops were planned along the 10-mile (16-km) trek before the spaceship reaches the Visitor Complex around 6 p.m. EDT. Hundreds of current and former employees, including dozens of astronauts, paraded with the shuttle as it slowly made its way beyond the space center's security gates into the publicly accessible Exploration Park, where about 8,000 people were expected to welcome Atlantis. "Today marks the end of a phenomenal 30-year program," said Kennedy Space centre director Robert Cabana, during a ceremony to sign over the shuttle to Delaware North Companies Parks & Resorts, which operates the visitors' centre under a contract with NASA. "Atlantis now takes on a mission of inspiration for future generations," Cabana said. Between its debut flight in 1985 and the shuttle finale in July 2011, Atlantis racked up more than 306 days in space, including seven missions to the now-defunct Russian space station Mir and 12 flights to the jointly owned international outpost, a $100 billion project of 15 nations. Atlantis is the last of NASA's three surviving spaceships to be retired. Discovery is located at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy centre in Chantilly, Virginia, and Endeavour was turned over to the California Science centre in Los Angeles. Two shuttles, Challenger and Columbia, were lost in accidents that claimed the lives of 14 astronauts. A prototype shuttle, Enterprise, was given to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City. Delaware North is designing a $100 million exhibit scheduled to open in July 2013 to showcase Atlantis and educate the public about the shuttle program. The ship will be suspended from a pedestal, belly up with its cargo bay doors open as if it were flying in space. "It'll be a tremendous exhibit," said NASA spokesman Michael Curie. (Editing by Kevin Gray and Vicki Allen) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

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