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Author
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Topic: Kennedy Space Center: Mate/Demate Device
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Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 42988
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 10-25-2014 05:37 PM
   
The space shuttle-era Mate-Demate Device (MDD) located at one end of the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida is being dismantled. The gantry-like crane that was used to hoist the orbiters on and off the space agency's modified Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, was the second MDD built after the original at NASA Dryden (now Armstrong) Flight Research Center in California (which was also recently demolished). Work to dismantle Kennedy's MDD is expected to be complete by Nov. 23, 2014. NASA astronaut Victor Glover noted the crane's status on Twitter: Say goodbye to the crane used to mate the Shuttle Orbiter to the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.  |
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 42988
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 10-28-2014 12:30 AM
The dismantling (and apparently toppling) has begun: |
Chuckster01
Member Posts: 874
From: Orlando, FL
Registered: Jan 2014
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posted 10-28-2014 05:19 AM
Has there been any arrangement made to offer pieces of the gantry for keepsakes, such as previous launch platforms?I for one would love to have a piece for my collection. |
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 42988
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 10-28-2014 06:45 AM
Recent NASA demolition contracts (e.g. Pad 39B's fixed and rotating service structures) directed all of the scrap metal be recycled, specifically forbidding any components to be saved or presented as artifacts or mementos due to federal restrictions. |
astro-nut
Member Posts: 946
From: Washington, IL
Registered: Jan 2006
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posted 11-01-2014 02:18 PM
It is sad to see pieces of our space history being dismantled. |
Fra Mauro
Member Posts: 1587
From: Bethpage, N.Y.
Registered: Jul 2002
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posted 11-04-2014 07:13 AM
I agree and I feel the same way when I see how Pad 19 has decayed over the years. Nothing can be done it, however we feel about it. |
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 42988
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 12-19-2014 02:59 PM
NASA photo release The Kennedy Space Center's Mate-Demate Device (MDD) is brought down by a hydraulic excavator as the effort begins to break apart the steel beams to be transported for recycling. The MDD was 150 feet long, 93 feet wide and 105 feet high and stood for more than 35 years as a key facility supporting the Space Shuttle Program. It was recently demolished, helping make way for current and future space program needs.  |
Fra Mauro
Member Posts: 1587
From: Bethpage, N.Y.
Registered: Jul 2002
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posted 12-21-2014 04:35 PM
The last line makes it sound like they needed the space for something else. Unnecessary — we know it was "space junk." |
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 42988
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 12-21-2014 05:22 PM
They may or may not need the physical space, but the center needs the funds being spent to maintain the MDD to make way for other program needs. |
dabolton
Member Posts: 419
From: Seneca, IL, US
Registered: Jan 2009
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posted 12-22-2014 09:28 AM
What kind of costs; put a security fence around it and let it sit. |
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 42988
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 12-22-2014 09:38 AM
The corrosion rate at Kennedy Space Center is among the highest recorded in the country given the surrounding marine environment. As such, abandoning large metal structures in place is not generally an option, especially in a still-active area. Just opposite the MDD is where T-38 and other arriving aircraft are serviced. |
ea757grrl
Member Posts: 729
From: South Carolina
Registered: Jul 2006
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posted 12-22-2014 11:28 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
The corrosion rate at Kennedy Space Center is among the highest recorded in the country given the surrounding marine environment.
Anyone who's been out to the remains of LC14 or LC19 has seen what would happen to the Mate/Demate Device if it were left in place without the (intensive) care it would need. It hurts to see these icons of an era like the Mate/Demate Device meet their end, but in my mind it's better to pull them down now than let them waste away and become a hazard in what is, after all, a working area. |
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 42988
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 02-05-2015 09:41 AM
collectSPACE NASA gantry used to lift space shuttles off jumbo jets demolished in FloridaOne of NASA's last remaining structures unique to supporting the space shuttle is no more. The Mate-Demate Device, which for 35 years was used at NASA's Kennedy Space Center to mount and remove the space shuttles from the back of their transport jumbo jets, has been demolished. The towering gantry was toppled to make way for the Florida space center's current and future needs, NASA reported on its website on Wednesday (Feb. 4). "The MDD was a solid, well-built structure," Ismael Otero, the project manager for NASA's Construction of Facilities Division in Center Operations, said in the NASA interview. "We started the demolition project in October, and it was completed on Nov. 26, [2014]."  |
SpaceAngel
Member Posts: 307
From: Maryland
Registered: May 2010
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posted 02-17-2015 04:40 PM
May the MDD rest in pieces... |
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