Topic: Google Street View: 'space shuttle' at KSC (2012)
Paul78zephyr Member
Posts: 675 From: Hudson, MA Registered: Jul 2005
posted 10-30-2013 01:43 PM
What is the 'space shuttle' vehicle visible in 'street view' at Google maps here:
The 'space shuttle' appears to be at the dock at the turning basin and has no vehicle 'name' on the fuselage. Clearly not a real space shuttle but what is it (and why)?
Ben Member
Posts: 1896 From: Cape Canaveral, FL Registered: May 2000
posted 10-30-2013 03:52 PM
This was shuttle mockup Explorer (now Independence in Texas) before it sailed to Houston.
JBoe Member
Posts: 960 From: Churchton, MD Registered: Oct 2012
posted 10-30-2013 04:11 PM
Wasn't there another one named Pathfinder?
onesmallstep Member
Posts: 1310 From: Staten Island, New York USA Registered: Nov 2007
posted 10-30-2013 05:00 PM
Pathfinder still exists — it's exhibited at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL with two SRBs and an ET as a shuttle 'stack' at an angle. Given the honorary number OV-098, it was used as a test article to prove the cranes, structures and other shuttle support hardware worked. Built in 1977, it was retired and put in storage until Japanese investors asked for it to be exhibited at a space expo there in 1983-84. It was returned to the US and has resided in Huntsville ever since.
It was refurbished several years ago to repair corrosion that leaked in thru the fiberglass and wood construction used to make it more 'shuttle-like' for exhibit in Japan.