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Historic space shuttle access arm reaches out to public on temporary display [i]A large piece of a space shuttle launch pad has landed on temporary display, where the public visiting NASA's Florida spaceport may catch sight of it. The orbiter access arm and "white room" that for 30 years served as the astronauts' walkway into the space shuttles poised on Launch Pad 39A was recently moved outside of the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The public may have the chance to see the gantry arm while on bus tours departing from the center's visitor complex, even getting up-close on one of the paths. The iconic 65-foot-long (20-meter) arm and its integrated environmentally-controlled room was used by 82 astronaut crews to cross from the 147-foot (45-m) level of the pad's fixed service structure, or tower, to the shuttle that would take them to orbit. The arm and white room was first used for STS-1, the maiden flight of the space shuttle program, in 1981, and was retired with the launch of the final shuttle mission, STS-135, in 2011.[/i]
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