Staring at the belly of the beast

The magical door
Merritt Island, FL
December 2019
This photo originally shared on Instagram

This is the underside of Space Shuttle Atlantis, specifically the orbiter's midbody near the starboard landing gear door. When we visited her last year at KSC's Visitor Complex, I spent an inordinate amount of time just staring at her seemingly limitless details.

Like this door. It has one job - open up just a few seconds before landing so the gear can drop down and lock in place. Easier said than done considering what that singular piece of hardware had to endure in the seconds, minutes, days, and weeks leading up to that pivotal, all-or-nothing moment.

First it had to survive the stresses of liftoff and acceleration to orbital speed within just over 8 minutes. Then it had to alternately bake and freeze in the vacuum of space while the ship chased the ISS, then sat docked to it for a couple of weeks. Then it had to endure the hellfire of re-entry, followed by a coup-de-grace of hypersonic airflow before it opened up in lockstep with its port-side twin and main-gear doors up front.

Engineers will scoff at the wonder of it all - because in coldly rational terms, it's easy to understand how this thing works. After all, NASA had plenty of opportunity to figure it all out through the program's 135 orbital flights and 4 atmospheric test flights. But two out of five orbiters never came home, so engineering can only go so far when the folks running the show fail to learn from history.

I'm thankful that this door worked as it needed to, that Atlantis brought all 156 folks who flew on her home safely over her 33 round trips to space, that I got to see firsthand what an engineering miracle looks like. I wonder how I'll tell more of her story when we eventually return.

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Related:

Staring Atlantis in the nose, August 2020

Where Atlantis feels the heat, February 2020

Face-to-face with Space Shuttle Atlantis, January 2020

Saying thanks to the Challenger crew, January 2020

Looking through Columbia's windows, February 2020

The Shuttle Era ends, July 2011

On Atlantis once more sinking beneath the waves, July 2011

Atlantis comes down for good, July 2011