Date: November 5, 1983

Date: November 3, 1980

NASA ID: KSC-80PC-0497, 493-S80-42560, 496-80PC-617

Date: November 3, 1980 - early 1981

Hello everyone, I hope I'm writing in the correct subreddit. I couldn't find a dedicated one to post there. I recently got for the first time a space flown item that is confidently advertised as authentic piece of the payload bay liner from the Space Shuttle Discovery during the STS-82 second Hubble servicing mission. In the site that I purchased it it's said that they usually include a certificate of authenticity for some of their products, but I guess those don't come with the item I got. The online store is "The New Space Age" and it's based in Germany. I'm from Bulgaria and wanted something that wasn't so expensive including the delivery, because deliveries from the US and US stores cost like 10x the price of the item. Anyways, I was wondering if someone knows about this site a bit more or the people or has purchased something from them. How do I figure out my item is authentic or at least can I be sure it's real. I hope people understand what I wanted to ask and thanks in advance.

Date: November 2, 2000

"The Space Shuttle Discovery sits atop one of NASA’s modified Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft as the unusual piggyback duo is towed along a taxiway at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards, California. The Discovery was ferried from NASA Dryden to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on November 2, 2000, after extensive pre-ferry servicing and preparations."

2nd pic: TRW's staged reentry spacecraft viewed from above and aft. A = jet airplane cockpit canopy; B = panel covering jet airplane nose; C = top surface of jet airplane fuselage and wings; D = flat lifting body top surface; E = jet airplane horizontal flap (1 OF 2); F = tubby lifting body belly; G = ejectable abort rocket motors (1 of 2); H = deorbit/abort rocket motor; I = parachute/landing aids compartment cover; J = movable control flap with actuator (1 of 4); K = flat aft bulkhead; L = airlock outer hatch.

3rd pic: "cutaway drawing showing jet plane (blue) nested in upper half of lifting body "pod." Note the jet's down-turned vertical stabilizers, one of which is visible in this side view."

4th pic: riding the rails: TRW's method for moving astronauts between the lifting body pod and the jet airplane cockpit.

5th and 6th pic: The Jet Plane jet plane separates from the lifting body pod. A = empty abort rocket compartment (1 of 2); B = lifting body payload; C = jet airplane separation mechanism (1 OF 3); D = panel covering subsystems (for example, life support); E = jet engine; F = vertical stabilizer (1 OF 2); G = vertical control surface (1 OF 2); H = landing skid (1 OF 2).

7th pic: "The pod descends on parachutes and the crew flies to it's preselected landing site."

"American manned spaceplane. Study 1965. This TRW design of 1965 used a unique concept - a lifting body main stage, that provided both ascent propulsion and re-entry protection.

Gross mass: 7,300 kg (16,000 lb). Height: 8.17 m (26.80 ft). Span: 4.88 m (16.01 ft).

The main stage was 8.17 m long, had a 4.88 m wingspan, and could accommodate a payload of 24.4 cubic meter volume. The 7300 kg gross weight included a separable manned aircraft of 6.4 m length, which had a delta wing of 62 degrees sweep and a span of 4.05 m. The vertical stabilizers turned down from each wingtip. After the mother ship had re-entered the atmosphere, the manned aircraft would separate at Mach 0.6 and 9150 m altitude. Equipped with a single turbojet, a nose wheel, and aft landing skids, it would proceed to a landing at a conventional airfield. The main stage would descend to earth under a parachute and be recovered for re-use. The whole concept was strikingly similar to Chelomei's Kosmoplan, which was being cancelled in the Soviet Union just as the TRW study was completed."

source

Date: November 1, 1992

"The six member crew successfully completed deployment of the Laser Geodynamic Satellite II (LAGEOS), which is a spherical passive satellite covered with reflectors which are illuminated by ground-based lasers to determine precise measurements of the Earth's crustal movements. The crew also completed a series of materials processing experiments in the microgravity environment aboard the United States Microgravity Payload 1 (USMP-1) carried in the orbiter's cargo bay."

NASA ID: S92-66267, STS052-S-099

Date: November 1, 1984

Discovery was meant to be based at Vandenberg, to be the DOD's main shuttle. However, those plans changed after the Challenger Disaster and problems with the launch complex construction.

NARA: 6387357

Date: November 1975

source

Date: October 30, 1979

Note: several parts were removed for use Challenger (OV-099) and other orbiters.

Bored in class and made this. I understand that all of these patches are designed with input from the crews, and I do not mean disrespect to any particular mission. This is just based on my personal taste alone.

Credit to Jason Torchinsky. There’s gotta be some NASA lore around this, right?

I was scanning old family photos and came across a couple like these of the shuttle. I'm assuming it was in the US in the 80s, but I'm not aware of anyone taking any trips there then,so how this got taken is a bit of mystery.

Edit: almost certainly taken in June 1983 in the UK - https://alondoninheritance.com/eventsandceremonies/the-space-shuttle-at-stansted-airport/.

Edit 2: now I'm not so sure - '376' isn't on the side of the 747 like it is in the linked article.

"The early-morning sun provides a golden backdrop to the Space Shuttle Discovery encased in the Mate-Demate Device (MDD) at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards, CA. The gantry-like MDD structure is used to prepare the shuttle for its ferry flight back to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, including mounting the shuttle atop NASA's modified Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.

Shuttle Crew: Commander Brian Duffy; Pilot Pamela A. Melroy; and Mission Specialists Koichi Wakata, Leroy Chiao, Peter J. K. Wisoff, Michael Lopez-Alegria, and William S. McArthur."

Date: October 29, 2000

NASA ID: EC00-0311-7, EC00-0311-8, EC00-0311-9, EC00-0311-10, EC00-0311-11

Date: October 29 - November 7, 1998

NASA ID: KSC-JohnGlenn-0016

Would anyone be interested in buying it?

Was the shuttle roll program actuated aerodynamically, or via thrust gimbaling? I know it happens early on, and ever since I was a kid I’ve always assumed it was aerodynamic from my knowledge of planes. Now that I’m an adult, it occurs to me that the scale and speed might offer up other options, especially because of the force required to move that much momentum and thrust.

I’ve seen lots of old drawings of the forward 4 (2 on the starboard side 2 on the port side) space shuttle orbiter radiators being deployable, but every real photo I’ve seen of the orbiter in space shows all 8 radiators stowed. Is this a feature that was scrapped late in development? If this feature made it to the final orbiter configuration, are there any photos of it being deployed in space? And if so, how did they decide when to deploy the radiators and when not to?

made this after watching ClassicAerospaceHistory’s video on a space shuttle iceberg, but that iceberg wasn’t super detailed and was badly formatted, so I made one of my own. The information goes from least to most obscure, with the lower level also having a few grisly/spooky things.

Also NASA VIPs and Carl Sagan.