CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – A wing of the high-fidelity space shuttle model that was on display at the NASA Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida passes over the roof of the guard shack at the security gate as it rolls onto the center. The model is being moved from the visitor complex to NASA Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39 turn basin. The shuttle was part of a display at the visitor complex that also included an external tank and two solid rocket boosters that were used to show visitors the size of actual space shuttle components. The full-scale shuttle model is being transferred from Kennedy to Space Center Houston, NASA Johnson Space Center's visitor center. The model will stay at the turn basin for a few months until it is ready to be transported to Texas via barge. The move also helps clear the way for the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex to begin construction of a new facility next year to display space shuttle Atlantis in 2013. For more information about Space Center Houston, visit http://www.spacecenter.org. Photo credit: NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis KSC-2011-8234
Summary
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – A wing of the high-fidelity space shuttle model that was on display at the NASA Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida passes over the roof of the guard shack at the security gate as it rolls onto the center. The model is being moved from the visitor complex to NASA Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39 turn basin. The shuttle was part of a display at the visitor complex that also included an external tank and two solid rocket boosters that were used to show visitors the size of actual space shuttle components. The full-scale shuttle model is being transferred from Kennedy to Space Center Houston, NASA Johnson Space Center's visitor center. The model will stay at the turn basin for a few months until it is ready to be transported to Texas via barge. The move also helps clear the way for the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex to begin construction of a new facility next year to display space shuttle Atlantis in 2013. For more information about Space Center Houston, visit http://www.spacecenter.org. Photo credit: NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis
The Space Shuttle program was the United States government's manned launch vehicle program from 1981 to 2011, administered by NASA and officially beginning in 1972. The Space Shuttle system—composed of an orbiter launched with two reusable solid rocket boosters and a disposable external fuel tank— carried up to eight astronauts and up to 50,000 lb (23,000 kg) of payload into low Earth orbit (LEO). When its mission was complete, the orbiter would re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and lands as a glider. Although the concept had been explored since the late 1960s, the program formally commenced in 1972 and was the focus of NASA's manned operations after the final Apollo and Skylab flights in the mid-1970s. It started with the launch of the first shuttle Columbia on April 12, 1981, on STS-1. and finished with its last mission, STS-135 flown by Atlantis, in July 2011.