If you get to a museum to see one of the shuttles that actually flew in space, your jaw may drop. Just don’t mind the guys pulling parts from it.
NASA recently sent engineers to the California Science Center in Los Angeles to dust off the mothballs of the space shuttle Endeavor and remove four water storage tanks for future use aboard the International Space Station.
Photo: U.S. National Archives/New Scientist
That’s right, a branch of the government is trying to save a buck.
Earlier this year, NASA also pulled the tanks from the shuttle Atlantis at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
NASA says the tanks are in good shape and could possibly be re-engineered to factor into a new water storage system aboard the space station.
“Using the shuttle tanks could greatly reduce the overall cost to build the new system,” NASA spokesman Daniel Huot told New Scientist.
The space shuttle program came to an end in 2011 and the fleet of four were sent to various museums around the country. In addition to providing water to the space shuttle crew, the tanks were used to refill waters supplies for astronauts aboard the space station.
NASA does not have a timeline for installing the new water system on the space station.
Source: Supercompressor
