The first assessment for how their product would hold up came days after they finished when an atmospheric river storm hit California with torrential downpours.
The entire project took six days and seven rolls of 40 by 100-foot-long plastic rolls. The Olympic team of six decided to use strapping to hoist pieces of shrinkwrap from the ceiling and walls, suspending the product in air as they attached the next piece, seemingly defying gravity while they wrapped. "How are we going to put this whole wrap of plastic around this whole thing without being able to hold it in place?" "The engineers said, look, 'You can't use any tape and you can't use any strapping because the heat shield tiles that are placed on the bottom are just glued on.' And so, if our tape came in contact or any strapping, it would actually crush those tiles or those tiles might be removed," Groark said. They came up with a game plan for how to shrinkwrap the spacecraft, which is 122 feet long with a 78-foot wingspan, but challenges presented themselves along the way. The Olympic team was first approached for the project in mid-December. "Our shrink wrap basically cocoons it and protects it for, I think, about two years while the builders construct a whole building around it and put a whole roof over it," Groark said, confident that his product would stand the test of time. The shuttle, which was previously part of a horizontal display at the Science Center in Exposition Park, will sit exposed to the elements as construction crews take years to build the walls of the new exhibit around the towering shuttle. Sign up for NBC San Diego newsletters.Īnd withhold it must. Visit SPACE.Get San Diego local news, weather forecasts, sports and lifestyle stories to your inbox. You can follow senior writer Clara Moskowitz on Twitter ClaraMoskowitz. The shuttle was used to launch the first Hubble servicing mission, STS-61 in December 1993, which famously corrected the observatory's faulty optics. Construction on the orbiter began in September 1987, and completed in April 1991.ġ: The number of times Endeavour has visited the Hubble Telescope in orbit. ģ.5: The number of years it took NASA to build Endeavour. Its predecessors include Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, and Atlantis. space station mission, the STS-88 flight in December 1998 that launched the first American space station module, Unity.Ĥ: The number of space shuttles that NASA built before Endeavour.
The shuttle's trips to the orbiting laboratory include the very first U.S. The orbiter carried seven astronauts to space on the STS-49 mission to rescue and repair a broken communications satellite.Ģ99: The total number of days Endeavour has spent in space, counting those during this final flight STS-134.ġ33: The number of crew members Endeavour has carried to orbit, not including the six astronautsslated to ride the shuttle on the STS-134 mission.Ģ5: The number of missions Endeavour will have flown by the time it is retired.ġ2: The number of times Endeavour will have visited the International Space Station before it is retired. It's about Mach 25, or five times the speed of a bullet.Ĥ,671: The number of orbits Endeavour made of Earth during all of its missions.ġ992: The year Endeavour lifted off on its first flight. The name Endeavour honors the 17th century sailing ship HMB Endeavour, which was captained by British seaman James Cook on a famous voyage of exploration in the South Pacific.ġ7,400: The speed at which Endeavour traveled (in miles per hour) to remain in orbit. ĥ00,000: The number of spectators estimated to turn out to Florida's Space Coast to watch Endeavour's final launch.Ħ,154: The number of entries in a national student contest to name the space shuttle Endeavourwhen it was built. Here's a by-the-numbers look at Endeavour's lasting legacy in space:ġ22,883,151 : The total miles Endeavour has traveled after its last voyage.