News Decommissioning of Discovery (OV-103)

[zerofay32]

Soon they won't even do that...

 

[Keatah]

They'll just cause more milling crowds full of bawling babies at museums. And museums will now have the perfect excuse to raise prices again.

 

[Pyromaniac605]

Being my favourite of the Shuttles, this is a sad time for me, but I think everyone is overreacting a bit, at least it'll be displayed somewhere for future generations to see and look back on the past, rather than left to decay or have a hangar collapse on it.

With all this sadness everyone is showing, it's no wonder the Vulcans discovered warp drive before us...

 

[Yoda]

This makes me sick !!!
What a waste !
The US government should bow their heads in shame for what they've done to the American Manned Space Flight program.

 

[IronRain]

Spaceflight Now:

The aerodynamic tail cone to cover space shuttle Discovery's main engines and provide a smooth airflow during the piggyback ride atop the modified Boeing 747 carrier jet to the Smithsonian in April was installed onto the orbiter this week.

The tail cone structure was moved from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the nearby Orbiter Processing Facility bay 1 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center where Discovery has been decommissioned.

Discovery is being prepared for display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.

And for their Spaceflight Now+Plus subscribers:

[FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF][SIZE=+2]Good night, Discovery[/SIZE][/FONT]

The space shuttle Discovery, undergoing her retirement and transition to museum status at the Kennedy Space Center, has been outfitted with hollowed thruster and rocket pods, replicas of the main engines, the payload bay doors sealed up and the emotional moment of being powered down for the final time. We take a look back at all of those events in this video package presented for Spaceflight Now+Plus users.