![]() ![]() ![]() The gateway into the Atlantis exhibit, a 184-foot-tall replica of the shuttle's solid rocket boosters and external tank, establishes the scale for the orbiter's display waiting inside. The "stack" and the sweeping wings of the exhibit building can be seen rising from the horizon as guests travel to the visitor complex. The gateway into the Atlantis exhibit, a 184-foot-tall (56 m) replica of the shuttle's solid rocket boosters and external tank, establishes the scale for the display waiting inside. The exhibit, however, is more than just a space shuttle inside a five-story building - as if that isn't enough - but a well-crafted, interactive tribute to the vehicle's storied 30 years of service. "It is striking to be able to see it from this perspective," he told collectSPACE. "Granted, it is not moving, I consider this to be very dynamic." "This is anything but static," said astronaut Bob Springer, who lifted off on board Atlantis in 1990. What's more, thanks to theatrical lighting and a 40- foot-long (12-meter) animated digital backdrop, the orbiter comes alive as the changing hues and resulting shadows stretch across its surface. With its payload bay open and a replica of its Canadarm robotic arm extended, Atlantis looks less like a museum's static display than it does a still active vehicle, somehow frozen in place, as if it could soar back into orbit at any time. "Only from up on the space station could you look down and see the vehicle like this." - astronaut Tom Jones. "And that is the last time I saw Atlantis, in this kind of configuration, so that's really a treat! being carried back to my three spacewalks on Atlantis." ![]() "Only from up on the space station could you look down and see the vehicle like this," said astronaut Tom Jones, who made his fourth and final spaceflight aboard Atlantis in 2001. The effect is that the bird is back in flight, or so it appears, yielding views that only a handful of astronauts in orbit were lucky enough to see. Atlantis has been raised 30 feet (9 meters) into the air and angled 43.21 degrees to one side. In California, New York and Virginia, NASA's other retired shuttles are all displayed, at least for now, on or near the ground in a horizontal orientation. It succeeds in bringing the public nose-to-nose - and nose-to-wing and nose-to-tail - with Atlantis in a way that is unique to every other museum display of a shuttle orbiter. "Space Shuttle Atlantis," which debuts on Saturday (June 29), showcases the retired winged spacecraft as part of a $100 million exhibit that has been more than a year in the making. There is a moment in the new Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibit at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex when a fantasy becomes reality and the experience is nothing short of magical.īut unlike the theme parks in nearby Orlando, Florida, the attraction here is not the make believe, but the recognition that what you are looking at is in fact real. ![]()
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