Keep Space Shuttle Atlantis as Museum Piece

May 31, 2010 Aviation Week “Correspondence”

Jeremiah Farmer’s suggestion to have Atlantis docked to the Itnernational Space Station (ISS) for use as a space vehicle or for storage is not practical (AW&ST May 20, p. 8; April 26, p. 16)

The problems include a substantial increase in drag to the ISS assembly, potential damage to the orbiter thermal tiles from debris and the need to maintain a ground staff and communication links to support flights from ISS.

Any flights from ISS would require retanking of propellants. Neither ISS nor the orbiter are equipped for such propellant transfers in-orbit, nor is access for doing this available to space-suited actronauts even if they were so trained.

Propellant resupply would be much different than the semi-autonamous transfer from Progress vehicles to ISS. Also, there is no capability to replenish the oxygen tanks the oribiter uses for life support and fuel cell power generation. Lastly, the payload bay is not pressurized, so storage will be limited. Atlantis would serve better as a promienent ground display.

Gordon Dressler