Sep 19, 2008 2:19 pm US/Eastern
Rescue Shuttle On Launch Pad At Cape
CAPE CANAVERAL (CBS4) ―
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The exterior of the Space Shuttle Atlantis' crew cabin and docking system is seen Feb. 9, 2008.
NASA/Getty Images
Today marks a first for NASA at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral.
Late Thursday night and into Friday morning, beginning at 11:15pm Eastern Time, Space shuttle Endeavor rolled out to launch pad 39-B, taking nearly eight hours to make the 4.2 mile long trip.
What makes this historical is that Endeavor will serve as an emergency back-up rescue ship for space shuttle Atlantis when Atlantis blasts off on a mission to the space telescope Hubble next month.
This is the first time NASA has put a shuttle on the launch pad to serve as an emergency rescue vehicle in the event problems develop aboard Atlantis while in space.
CBS4 I-Team Investigator Stephen Stock gave CBS4.com a rare behind-the-scenes look at preparations for this launch.
NASA technicians compare it to a ballet. Only these dancers are far from petite.
Click on the accompanying video and watch the mating dance of a space shuttle's external fuel tank to the orbiter, shuttle Atlantis itself.
It's a performance that takes place beyond the view of the public, 170 feet up in the air, inside the giant VAB, the vehicle assembly building, which is one of the largest buildings in the world.
This dance requires precision and skill which would make any ballerina proud.
It's a dance that lasts longer than a day, which is why CBS4 put this video on high speed to show how it all comes together.
More than a dozen NASA technicians raise the 15 story tall, 39 ton external fuel tank. Though the tank is gigantic and massive, it will absorb 8 million pounds of explosive thrust on the launch pad. It's also delicate and fragile. Its thin skin is covered with an inch of foam that you could poke your arm through.
Then the other dance partner enters through the north door, what NASA calls the vehicle, or what most of us simply call the shuttle.
After determining the center of gravity on the 88 ton vehicle, NASA technicians literally pick it up with a giant crane, turn it from horizontal to vertical, and mate it with the external fuel tank and the two solid rocket boosters. All of this takes place on a huge launch platform several hundred feet above the ground.
Only then, in technical NASA "speak," is this called "the space shuttle."
The entire assembled structure, the tank, boosters, orbiter, launch pad, everything, rolls by crawler to the launch pad nearly 4 miles away.
The crawler journeys down a road almost as wide as an eight-lane turnpike moving slowly to the launch pad, at less than a mile an hour, keeping perfectly level to keep from tipping over.
It's a trip that lasts 6 hours or more. Interestingly, the trip from launch pad into space 185 miles above the earth only lasts about 8 minutes!
Soon, there won't be any more shuttle flights. Once the shuttle is done helping build the International Space Station, the entire fleet will be retired in 2010.
This is the last space shuttle trip to the Hubble space telescope.
In fact, after the space shuttle Columbia accident, then NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said he would not allow any more missions to service the Hubble Space Telescope because of safety concerns.
NASA engineers and current administrator Michael Griffin believe they have addressed those safety concerns by implementing several back-up emergency plans including possibly using shuttle Endeavor as a back-up should Atlantis' crew need to be rescued while in space.
It's the first time NASA has even thought about having a back-up on the launch pad while another shuttle is in flight. After Shuttle Columbia broke up during re-entry, and holes were found in its wings, NASA engineers have struggled with what to do in the event another shuttle was punctured during lift-off.
Usually the shuttle goes to the International Space Station where there are other rescue options. But this time it won't be an option.
Space telescope Hubble is in a much higher orbit (about 350 miles above the earth) than the ISS (about 250 miles above the earth.)
So having a second shuttle is the only way to rescue the astronauts if there was a problem with a hole in Atlantis.
Even then NASA has never tried anything like a shuttle to shuttle rescue before.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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