Here is a working link with the cool pictures

http://www.popgive.com/2008/04/space-shuttle-processing-rarely-seen-by.html

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2007/11/rare-photos-of-russian-buran-space.html

Also as mentioned Bailonur isnt in the middle of a swamp so the water table is a lot lower hence they can dig down with this method.

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/baikonur_r7_1.html

I’m really not sure what the Russian approach is on this, if someone knows I’d love to hear it. Maybe more water or something to do with the russian landscape? Maybe just less expectation for everything to survive launch after launch?

So it’s the SRBs and legacy designs which defined it.

I never liked the idea of the SRB (a giant “light and pray” firecracker) but I understand they have a far greater thrust/weight ratio than an equivalent liquid rocket so they’re a necessary evil.

And the crawlers are indeed impressive – seeing that little ant figure scuttling around under the crawler gives a very poignant view of size. Still, I remember some old archival footage of the old Soviet R-7 series rolling out of the shop – looking down the massive exhaust nozzles of the boosters also gave a good impression.

But regardless of whose they are – they’re always impressive machines to see.

1: is lift capacity. The weight of the things used in the shuttles is mind boggling, and the VAB cranes would be hopeless to lift and rotate an entire stack to vertical. Even a single SRB couldn’t be done in this fasion, they’re quite dense when loaded.

2: design. Components like the SRBs are built in segments for safety purposes as well as weight, so there are many joints between sections. These joints are built to take a vertical load, but a lateral one on that magnitude would damage the hardware.

3: and probably the real reason behind some the design stuff that lead to the above, is that it had to all work on a modified MLP from the previous rockets (budget), and the russians have a special platform with a mechanism to rotate the assembly to vertical at the pad. Honestly I think we’ve got it right after all, we get easier access to many of the systems, and don’t have to refurbish a rotating mechanism (or hope there isn’t a problem with it when you get to the pad).

We already had a building where we could do such things, and the russians had to design around not having such a resource.

BTW, the russians move their stuff out to the pad on tracks (rails), which we had looked at doing but couldn’t due to pad elevation. Instead we have the crawlers, which are sooo much cooler.

Most of the US rockets seem to be assembled this way, whereas the Russians assemble them horizontally (even the Buran/Energia was horizontal), wheel them out flat, and then erect them on the pad.

Not sure how the French and Chinese set them up.

I’ve seen this before; a friend of mine sent it around in PowerPoint format. I think that was how it started out. (Same captions and everything.) There are a few misidentified pictures (two pics ostensibly of the payload canister are actually of the real payload bay, on the pad), but they’re all cool.

Random factoid: via hydraulic jacks in each corner of its top platform, the Crawler-Transporter can keep the stack vertical to within less than a degree. It is said that even in the Apollo-Saturn days, the tip of the lighting rod on top of the Mobile Launcher never wobbled by more than a foot, even during the climb up the 5% slope ramp at the pad.

Second random factoid: the entire “stack” (Orbiter, ET, and SRBs) is held onto the Mobile Launch Platform by exactly eight massive bolts, four in each SRB. Oh, the MLP is connected to the SRBs, the SRBs are connected to the ET, the ET is connected to the Orbiter, oh hear the word of the Lord.

“The whole thing is clearly a hoax! I can’t see any stars in the pictures.

The stars are the humans responsible for designing, building, operatingand flying the Shuttle , mate!

PS. Sorry about the typos in my firt post above – wish we could edit here!

“I remember watching the first John Glenn launch, the launches of the very first orbiting-only space craft and then the continuing launches of the Apollo series and then the first Shuttle launch – but all on TV. I always thought that I had a small part in the space program because my taxes, even though minuscule in amount, helped to pay for those flights. I also wondered if I’d ever see a launch in person. It is now nearing the end of the Shuttle program and I’ve yet to get to Florida to see one of those craft leave the planet, and it doesn’t look now as if I’ll ever get to do so. But I still think the manned programs were worth supporting and I hope our nation continues in this human-piloted reach for space, because I don’t believe that robotic exploration has the imaginative spark that we bring to a human activity.
Will. M”

I’ll second all that. Except as an Aussie my taxes don’t hep pay for tehspaec progarm -sorry – I wish they would! Oh, & I’m too young to have seen the Mercury flights, Gemini flights and Apollo flights too…

I do recall as a very little kid – about 8 or so – staying up late to see the very first launch of the space shuttle ‘Columbia.’ It was all white incl. the External Tank, so cool and futuristsic back then – a real spaceplane! Loved the shuttle then and depsite all that’s happened since, I still love it now .. Even if it hasn’t quite lived up to expectations.

I think from a global perspective the space program esp. Apollo was the very best thing that the United States of America has ever done – & I wish they’d get back to doing more in space; both manned and unmanned, near Earth space and Lunar colony building & first human Martian expedition and to the asterioids as well… There is so much potential for us to do such awe-inspiring things. Just wish we’d do it.

BTW Will M : Did you see Glenn’s second flight – aboard the shuttle?
I’m halfway through reading John Glenn’s autobiography ‘John Glenn : A Memoir’ (random House, 1999.) right now.

Thanks BA for the awesome photos!

http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/index.cfm

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/pao/History/SP-4204/ch11-6.html

No wonder the shuttle moves so slow, the crawlerway must have its own gravity!

I do realise that I was probably the only one wondering about the road. It’s like pointing at the moon and me looking at your finger!

Out of interest, does anyone know how deep the foundations had to be for the road to the launch site? Just curious.