Saturday, March 7, 2020

Now, why wouldn't there be racer style seats there? It is the space shuttle, after all.


STS-133 was the 133rd mission in NASA's Space Shuttle program; during the mission, Space Shuttle Discovery docked with the International Space Station. It was Discovery's 39th and final mission.

7 comments:

  1. Those are Spaceship Seats which has to be way beyond racers seats!!

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  2. the astronaut suits they wear while taking off and landing make standard seats useless.

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  3. Also recall that the seats need to be sturdy enough to withstand the G-forces of launch. Once in orbit, a seat cushion would be unnecessary. Weightless environment.

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  4. Why no super-duper seat? Because until Elon Musk came along and decided to build a spaceship out of steel, all previous space vessels have all been under the 'must cut weight' rule.

    Only with Orion (bomb pushed huge spaceship) was weight ever not going to be a problem. Well, even Orion had a weight issue, as too little weight would have been a problem. No, seriously, true.

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  5. I read a whole book about the seat design. They were not just about saving weight, there were a bunch of considerations. For one, thing, crew needed to be able to ingress and egress the seats wearing a pressurized suit. Also, the seat would be used in vertical launch as well as horizontal landing, where the occupant would be subject to very different stresses. Hard landings needed to be accounted for as well. The seats also had the ability to be removed and stowed, as most would not be needed in orbit, and to allow access to panels below them.
    They also have to accommodate inertial reel and oxygen systems. The commander and pilots seats have both electric and manual position controls on the Z or X axis.
    They are not budget seats.

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  6. But no drink holders..... Must be tourist class.

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