Shuttling the Shuttle Trainer

摘要

THE LOW-DOWN: After a 30-year career training crews for every shuttle mission, NASA's FFT (Full Fuselage Trainer) has retired from its long-time home at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Following the end of the space shuttle program, the wooden simulator weighing nearly 25,000 pounds would require transport over 2,000 miles. Enter Sealed Air's protective packaging experts. The FFT's three engine-bell replicas were trucked to Seattle in wooden crates on a 52-foot long trailer in April 2012. The safe transport of the 24-foot long crew compartment would, however, prove more complex.