Above Atlantis

My second photo sequence of Atlantis in the STS 132 stack.

I was amazed at how much freedom I had to move about on this level to get different views for my photographs of the vehicle.

From directly ahead of the orbiter I could peer over the parapet-like guard rail. From here Atlantis partly obscured the orange external tank on its belly and the two white solid rocket boosters clinging to the either side of the tank. This gave a pleasing lateral symmetry along a vertical line from the tip of the tank above all the way down to the tail fin of Atlantis way, way down below.

Closer to the railing, I could look further down.

Beyond Atlantis you can see some of the many platforms that provide access to the vehicle at many levels.
Although it felt like I could reach out and touch Atlantis, in reality this was an illusion caused by the huge size of the Vehicle Assembly Building.
Excellent downwards views were available from the side work platforms.

From the sides, left and right, I was able to see more of the tank and boosters. I could also more easily see directly down and see the main body of the orbiter and the mobile launch platform on which its solid rocket boosters sat.

Although we had been asked to tape down our watches and attach string around our glasses, our camera equipment was free. As I leaned out over the railing to look down on Atlantis I was very much aware that anything dropped from this height would severely damage Atlantis' fragile thermal protection system tiles and blankets, or injure one of the workers below. I made particular care to ensure that I stepped well back every time I changed lenses, lest one slip out of my excited hands or a lens cap roll over the precipice.

It felt like the vehicle was within touching distance - so huge was this vehicle - although in reality the closest was about 10 metres.

At one point I dragged my attention away from the shuttle to look at the building itself. High as we were, the building yawned much, much higher. How truly enormous were those Saturn 5 rockets that had been assembled in this building to send men to the Moon. The shuttle is a pipsqueak in comparison.

There were numerous work platforms at many levels. The outermost tips of these were able to be folded up out of the way when not in use.

The colour cast in these images is caused by the colour temperature of the lighting in the Vehicle Assembly Building. In the above photo, notice the rectangular hole in the grey mobile launch platform. During launch, this allows the exhaust from the Space Shuttle's Main Engines to pass through to the flame trench of the fixed pad structure.

Previous page Diary Contents Next Page The Space Show Southern FM