Comments on: 360-degree virtual tour of the Space Shuttle Discovery flight deck

By: Jake0748

Jake0748 — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

This is so fookin cool. I just wish they had made the images in a high enough res so you could actually read all the labels on the panels. (Yes, I’m a nerd with no life)… I can spend hours looking at cockpit and instrument panel photos. :)

By: JG

JG — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Shuttle has been evolving since 1981 but from this shot it appears to include just about every example of toggle, slider, switch, diode, joystick, monitor, button, knob, micro-switch, scope, dial, peddle, plug, jack, meter and a few other gizmos and gadgets not available at Radio Shack.
Did you notice the pine tree air-freshener hanging from the rear-view?

By: cbk

cbk — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

It looks like the interface was designed by Microsoft in 1995. Does it run NT4?

By: Donald Petersen

Donald Petersen — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I had this book when I was a kid. I imagine the latest edition might be helpful when compared with these photos. The one I had mapped out every gauge and switch, told you how to run the crapper and fix lunch, the works.

At least, it sure seemed like a bright 12-year-old could study the book and step in to help if one of the crew fell ill with space-fever or the Cosmic Ralphs.

By: jeligula

jeligula — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Naw. Didn’t appear to be 1980′s tech at all.

By: tyger11

tyger11 — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

You bet. 1970s.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

project Apollo era controls and dell 17 inch laptop bolted to the side. Why do I keep thinking of the battlestar galacica pilot where Doral talks about how antiquated everything was because it wasn’t networked?

By: Neuron

Neuron — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

>360-degree virtual tour…

It’s actually 4 pi steradians.

By: coop

coop — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Love the little blue velcro tabs everywhere! Oh, and that’s what happened to my old Dell laptop…

By: Jake0748

Jake0748 — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’d love to have that book.

But… I think I’d make lunch and THEN fix the crapper. Doing it in the opposite order might cause cosmic-ralphs. ;)

By: mtdna

mtdna — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Is it wrong for me to be aroused by it??

By: Roy Trumbull

Roy Trumbull — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

At Rockwell in Downey, CA they had a shuttle with the interior panels off. Every time there was a change order the change was made there too. Thus if a problem developed in space they could talk the astronauts through a fix.
The Shuttle was right next to where my original office had been at Autonetics. Back then it was North American Aviation and that complex was the old Missile Division.
In the parking lot there were stripes for an airstrip. During WWII P38s were assembled there, shoved out the door, then took off over Imperial Hwy.

By: xneo

xneo — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I love everything about this… not counting the the Dell laptop on the console…. I can only assume that they completely rebuilt the thing from the ground up…

By: bjacques

bjacques — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Blue Velcro and Nomex cushions. It’s the little things that bring it all back, in my case 10 years at NASA-JSC, about a third of that spent crawling in and out of the mockups in Bldg 9.

One of which is going to Seattle.

By: Slickam

Slickam — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

You really wouldn’t want to mess with the Russian shuttle (Buran)

“New Scientist: After the cold war, why didn’t Russia maintain its shuttle programme?
Oleg Kotov: We had no civilian tasks for Buran and the military ones were no longer needed. It was originally designed as a military system for weapon delivery, maybe even nuclear weapons. The American shuttle also has military uses.”

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20664-cosmonaut-soviet-space-shuttle-was-safer-than-nasas.html

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I went to Spacecamp in 1992 or so and piloted the Endeavor simulator. This is nostalgic. The bottom right panel had the APU controls and I remember how deadly serious the startup sequence of that was.

By: Gulliver

Gulliver — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

It takes a lotta buttons to make a brick fly, even a bea-utiful brick.

Shout out to Anon #14, the shuttle simulator was the best part of Spacecamp.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Fantastic! It’s even got the “Bobko Adapter”, that little plastic tube on the switch on that lower-left-center panel. Nice!

By: Marktech

Marktech — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Not complete without decent cupholders, some old takeout wrappers and a cassette deck with a Creedence tape in it.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I am thrilled to see this, and why ? Instantly you can see where NASA learned from it’s past mistakes. No more searching through menu’s for the off button, or the ‘shut it down ffs button’, every thing is without micro processing, linked direct, and mercifully analogue. Well done, if cars today followed the same principle, we would spend less time and money. Well done NASA. prodprof.

By: z7q2

z7q2 — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I love that with all that crazy tech there is still a bog-standard fire extinguisher there. I bet they fly it with the manila inspection tag on it, too.

By: Sork

Sork — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The instrumentation of Atlantis was upgraded in 1999.

Cockpit porn

By: GaryG

GaryG — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Yeah, missiles, pffft…

Everyone knows Shuttles have lasers (proof: James Bonds Moonraker)

pew pew.

By: Donald Petersen

Donald Petersen — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I'm disappointed in the seat upholstery. I always dreamed the shuttle would have Tijuana Tuck-n-Roll, preferably in red vinyl. And a Hurst pistol-grip for the throttle.