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  • [ ♪ Intro ]

  • The Space Shuttle may have been out of commission for nearly a decade now.

  • But it's still arguably one of humanity's greatest achievements.

  • Unlike the rockets and capsules we use today, the shuttle was ideal for short trips to space.

  • You could launch into orbit, stay there for a couple of weeks to do what you needed to do,

  • then come home and touch down on a runway like it was just another transatlantic flight.

  • Thanks to the shuttle, we were able to repair the Hubble Space Telescope multiple times

  • and build the International Space Station.

  • Exploration today would be vastly different without it.

  • But no matter how it seems when you look back on the pictures and videos,

  • that degree of innovation didn't come easily.

  • It took more than a decade to design and build the shuttle,

  • and the thing was so complicated that engineers had to create gigantic, entirely new machines just to make the system work.

  • The basic idea behind the shuttle was simple enough, at least in theory.

  • It would launch from a pad in Florida like a regular rocket and spend a week or two in space.

  • Then, when it was time to come home, the crew would slow it down so it fell back to Earth.

  • Once the shuttle made it into the atmosphere, it would fly like a plane,

  • touching down on a runway, usually in Florida, but often in California, too.

  • Maybe you've spotted the first logistical problem here: If you land a shuttle in California,

  • you somehow need to get it back to the launchpad on the other side of the country for its next mission.

  • Sure, the orbiters could fly a lot like a plane when they landed,

  • but they weren't designed to actually be a plane.

  • And they were way too big to fit inside even the biggest cargo jets.

  • So NASA decided to stick them on top of a plane instead.

  • Or rather, one of two different planes, both modified so they could carry the shuttle on their backs

  • like some kind of weird speedy flying turtle.

  • Modifying the planes was pretty straightforward; they just had to add a docking system to the roof.

  • But getting the shuttle into position on top of the plane, and then taking it back off,

  • was another story.

  • For that, engineers invented the mate-demate device, or MDD.

  • NASA built a few of them, and they were designed to lift the shuttle in a way that would keep it safe and stable

  • while its carrier plane was either put into position under it or moved out of its way.

  • Which was not exactly easy to do when the shuttle in question weighed about 100,000 kilograms.

  • The MDD was a bit like an enormous, stationary double crane.

  • It had two towers, about 30 meters tall,

  • connected to a big horizontal beam that was attached to the shuttle to lift it.

  • Kind of hilariously, the first time NASA used an MDD to try to put a shuttle on its carrier plane,

  • they realized the orbiter didn't fit,

  • and they had to adjust some of the attachment points on the plane.

  • Because, you know, it's not like they use blueprints and measurements for this kind of thing.

  • But hey, at least they didn't drop the shuttle while they were waiting.

  • Once the shuttle made it to the launch site,

  • it was set up on another giant machine: the mobile launch platform.

  • The platform wasn't built specifically for the shuttle program,

  • it had been used since the Apollo days.

  • But it did need to be modified to work for the shuttles.

  • One major change engineers made was switching out the umbilical towers that had been used to hold the Saturn V,

  • that's the rocket used for Apollo launches, until it was time for launch.

  • Instead, the shuttle used two tail service masts,

  • small structures on either side of the tail that reached up to the bottoms of the wings.

  • The masts were set up to deliver things like fuel and power to the shuttle, while venting exhaust.

  • According to NASA's original plan, those changes should have been enough to accommodate the new spacecraft.

  • But then the first shuttle mission, STS-1, was launched.

  • And engineers realized they had a problem:

  • the shuttle's solid rocket boosters were too loud.

  • Sound carries energy, and when there's enough of it, it exerts a force you can feel.

  • In the case of the shuttle, the sound was so loud

  • that it damaged some of the thermal tiles on the outside of the orbiter,

  • the ones that were supposed to protect it from burning up on its way back through the atmosphere.

  • Thankfully, the orbiter made it back to the ground safely at the end of the mission.

  • But if they wanted to keep reusing the shuttles,

  • NASA knew they had to do more to protect them from the sound of their own launch.

  • So before the next mission, STS-2,

  • they installed the sound suppression water system on the mobile launch platform.

  • Water is much denser than air, and when sound travels through water,

  • it loses much more energy to the molecules it vibrates along the way.

  • So, the idea was that a rush of water could dampen the sound and vibrations from the launch,

  • protecting the shuttle from damage.

  • And I really do mean a rush.

  • Like, have you ever seen water gushing out of a fire hydrant at full blast?

  • This thing made that look like the tiniest raindrop.

  • In just 41 seconds, it spewed out 1.3 million liters of water.

  • And it worked!

  • We actually still use water sound suppression systems today, for rockets like SpaceX's Falcon 9.

  • The idea might sound kind of crude, but it's incredibly effective.

  • So, yeah, the shuttles are gone for good, which is a bummer.

  • But they gave us totally new ways to explore space,

  • and the machines we built to support their complexity continue to shape human spaceflight today.

  • If you want to learn about technology that revolutionized the space industry,

  • you can watch our episode about how computers changed space exploration forever.

  • And as always, thanks for watching this episode of SciShow Space!

  • [ ♪ Outro ]

[ ♪ Intro ]

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