- HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) - A contractor for NASA has asked the U.S. Space and
Rocket Center museum to return exhibit parts for future shuttle launches.
Citing a lack of parts and funding, Marshall Space Flight Center and United
Space Alliance asked the center last week to return forward assemblies
from the solid rocket boosters on the museum's full-size shuttle exhibit.
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- ``I wouldn't have thought we would have
given flight-ready hardware,'' Lynne Lowery, community affairs manager
at Marshall, told Sunday's Huntsville Times.
-
- The segmented rocket boosters are the
largest solid propellant motors ever flown, at 149 feet in length and 12
feet in diameter. After a shuttle launch, the boosters are designed to
separate at 220,000 feet and parachute back to the ocean. They are recovered
and refurbished for future flights. The forward assembly contains the booster's
jettison rockets, electronics, recovery parachutes and self-destruct system,
among other flight instrumentation.
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- John Chapman, deputy solid rocket booster
project manager at Marshall, said the assemblies were designed for repeated
use, but several have been damaged or lost since the U.S. shuttle program
began in 1981. ``I would hope folks say the shuttle program is trying to
be as cost-effective as possible to continue to fly the program,'' Chapman
said.
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- He estimated it would cost about $300,000
for a crane to lower the museum's boosters to the ground, remove the forward
assemblies, restore them to flight-ready condition and build nonflight
mockups for use in the museum exhibit. But it would take three years and
cost between $5 million and $10 million to find a manufacturer and build
new forward assemblies. And the Clinton administration's fiscal 2000 request
for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration represents a decline
for the fifth straight year.
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- ``We can't just wait until we have a
problem and go order some more,'' he said. ``We've got to get out in front
of the problem.'' The work at the museum will begin next week and the mockups
should be in place by March 15, said museum spokesman Edd Davis.
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