[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train]
This and similar responses regarding the weight of interior trim are all true, but there’s an even more fundamental reason why the interior of the Shuttle looks like an amateur inventor’s workshop: the Shuttles are all essentially experimental vehicles. They’re each handmade, essentially one of a kind craft, and much of the equipment used for various experiments was cobbled up, subjected to sufficient loads to assure it wouldn’t come apart in flight, and bolted in place with little concern for asthetics. Heck, the same thing is true even for production military hardware; climb inside the cargo bay of a C-17 and you won’t see smooth panels and padded chairs; you’ll see open bulkheads and stringers, exposed wiring and conduit, and tie-down chains hanging everywhere like something out of an Aliens movie.
[/QUOTE]
Exactly right. Phlosphr, if you’re ever on a working ship, you’ll see similar organization. It’s not disheveled, it’s functional. Things are put where they need to be. Access is important, safety is important, utility is important. Appearance doesn’t matter at all.
[QUOTE=Phlosphr]
Where a clean environment you’d be less likely to snag your foot on the ultra-expensive, oxygen enriching, core body temperature regulating, life support line.
[/QUOTE]
I’ll bet you large megabucks that no life support line is out where it can get snagged on. Those are tucked invisibly away. What you see are mere day-to-day “I’m using it now” living quarters mess.
I doubt you are getting the proper depth and space perception in the transmission, so everything looks like it is on top of everything else. That would contribute to it looking cluttered.
[QUOTE=Phlosphr]
Can’t they hide the wires and general debris that litters the inside of the shuttle?
[/QUOTE]
I’m afraid they can’t do that, Dave.
[QUOTE=Phlosphr]
I guess my biggest gripe is that I would think having things dangling around like on the ISS and Shuttle leaves more room for breaking or tearing or effing something up.
[/QUOTE]
NASA doesn’t care is someone’s sense of neatness is offended - They’ve been doing this some 40-odd years, they’ve a just a bit of experience in what works, and what doesn’t.
[QUOTE=Pleonast]
Exactly right. Phlosphr, if you’re ever on a working ship, you’ll see similar organization. It’s not disheveled, it’s functional. Things are put where they need to be. Access is important, safety is important, utility is important. Appearance doesn’t matter at all.
[/QUOTE]
Big ditto. For a close terrestrial analog for a spacecraft, go check out the interior of a submarine. A commissioned one, not a museum boat - they don’t have people working and living inside.
[QUOTE=Tranquilis]
NASA doesn’t care is someone’s sense of neatness is offended - They’ve been doing this some 40-odd years, they’ve a just a bit of experience in what works, and what doesn’t.
Big ditto. For a close terrestrial analog for a spacecraft, go check out the interior of a submarine. A commissioned one, not a museum boat - they don’t have people working and living inside.
[/QUOTE]
It’s not my sense of neatness that is offended - ask my wife, I’m not a neat guy - It’s my wonder as to how they can work in an environment where everything is so ubiquitous. That’s all. I’ve been aboard a sub, the Nautilus is Groton, CT. Though it’s a museum sub, my father - who is a sub vet - assured me it was not so neat and tidy all the time. He was aboard the Nautilus in the 60’s.
I just wonder how the space shuttle crew is trained to tether everything down for reentry, that’s got to be a bumpy ride, and not only that, I’d wonder how all that stuff doesn’t smash against other more expensive gear. I know my knowledge of this sort of thing is miniscule and I only comment based on what I see. But it’s interesting nontheless.
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase]
People go to movies to escape reality.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=KneadToKnow]
You misspelled “strip clubs.”
[/QUOTE]
People go to the movies to escape strip clubs? :dubious:
Shouldn´t be a concern with all that lack of paneling random crap floating itself into a place where it can cause damage? I seem to remember that on one of the first space flights John Glenn (I think) brought an unaproved snack into the capsule and sent the flight controllers into a fit about crumbs flying around.
[QUOTE=KneadToKnow]
You misspelled “strip clubs.”
[/QUOTE]
Lord knows how many times I’ve gone to a movie to escape a strip club.
[QUOTE=Ale]
Shouldn´t be a concern with all that lack of paneling random crap floating itself into a place where it can cause damage? I seem to remember that on one of the first space flights John Glenn (I think) brought an unaproved snack into the capsule and sent the flight controllers into a fit about crumbs flying around.
[/QUOTE]
*Unauthorized Gemini 3 “cargo” included a corned beef sandwich reportedly purchased at Wolfie’s Restaurant in Cocoa Beach, which was eaten by Grissom during the flight. Astronaut Young was authorized to eat specially prepared space food, and Grissom was not authorized to eat anything.
Crumbs from the “weightless” sandwich scattered throughout the Gemini 3 spacecraft, posing a potential, if unintentional, flight safety risk. This rules violation caused NASA to clamp down on what astronauts could and could not carry into space.*[right]–Gemini 3 Fact Sheet[/right]
Glen only flew once while in the astronaut corps (Mercury-Atlas 6 “Friendship 7”) in 1962, being the first American in orbit, and then much later on STS-95 in 1998. No illicit sandwiches for John Glen.
There isn’t, generally speaking, “random crap floating” around spacecraft, as it does, as you note, tend to get lodged in undesirable places resulting in deleterious effects, but things are often stowed in a manner that appears haphazard to untrained eyes (and is, frankly, pretty ad hoc much of the time). There’s a place for everything, and everything in its place, but there’s not always a neat drawer, locker, or vault in which to secure things out of sight.
Stranger
Hey, all I know is, if the movies don’t get better soon, I’m gonna wind up seeing a lot more fake boobs and shaved cooters.
I would say that the shuttle is far neater on mission than the Space Station. If any experiments are flown they are installed in a controlled enviroment before launch. On shuttle mid deck there are cabinet like structures used to stow equipment and experiments. They call them modular lockers. As far as stowing equipment before reentering the atmosphere, that is what the last day of flight is used for. Every Locker, and stowage space has a location number. When they repack the bags that go into the lockers they have a prearrainged format so everything fits in the right way and is not damaged. Take a look at this from Flight Day 9, Page 29, this is the daily update and instructions for the crew currently on orbit, the pages before 29 describe moving items to and from the Shuttle for Station resupply/return. Coreography pages 19-21, so that everything that needs to stay does, and ends up in the right place on station and the returning stuff ends up in the right place on the Shuttle. warning PDF file
I don’t have to clean my room, mom! This is how the astronauts do it!
[QUOTE=KneadToKnow]
Hey, all I know is, if the movies don’t get better soon, I’m gonna wind up seeing a lot more fake boobs and shaved cooters.
[/QUOTE]
What? You’re going to buy yourself a Blu-Ray player and a copy of Showgirls on Blu-Ray?
[QUOTE=Amp]
What? You’re going to buy yourself a Blu-Ray player and a copy of Showgirls on Blu-Ray?
[/QUOTE]
I bought it on laserdisc for $1.
:o
If I’m orbiting in a Shuttle and want aesthetics, I’ll look out the window.
Now, if we ever get a Space Elevator to work, or some other cheap means of Earth-to-Orbit, maybe we’ll have some real palaces in orbit. I want a rocketship like they used to have on the cover of Amazing, with riveted steel plating.
[QUOTE=Phlosphr]
It’s my wonder as to how they can work in an environment where everything is so ubiquitous.
[/quote]
Then look to yourself - you’re not a neatnik, yet you function… Your Biology Prof friend works well enough in his clutter, and so on - It seems to me that you already know the answer to this - They do because they do.
Same way they do everything else - by design, by practice before the mission, and by checklists. Probably a good old-fashioned eyeball-check, too, once everything’s been done by the checklist.
Yeah, I thought that space shuttles should look like the bridge of the starship “ENTERPRISE”! The shuttles look crude-even crummy. Will a MARS-bound spaceship look any better?
[QUOTE=ralph124c]
Will a MARS-bound spaceship look any better?
[/QUOTE]
Worse, probably - more time for things to proliferate.
[QUOTE=Phlosphr]
I mean seriously folks, can we please do something to make the appearance a little better!
[/QUOTE]
So you want a Queer Eye for the Spaceship Guys? 
[QUOTE=Phlosphr]
I mean seriously folks, can we please do something to make the appearance a little better!
[/QUOTE]
why? What is the benefit of it looking better? It is not like there are two competing space programs and the tidy look is going to land you a contract or anything. What you see is what works with the minimum effort.