Now’s Your Big Chance To Use NASA’s Shuttle Launcher Platforms

If you’ve got a new use for the mobile launcher platforms NASA used for the shuttle program, the agency is all ears.

NASA invited government and commercial entities to submit their ideas for the platforms, which used to ferry the space shuttles and the Apollo rockets from the Vehicle Assembly Building to their launch pads.

Mobile launcher platform
Space shuttle Discovery on board one of the mobile launcher platforms. Credit: NASA

The ideal for NASA is to make them available for commercial launch activity. “Interested parties are requested to provide the following … estimated annual launch manifest, plans for retrofitting, storing, transporting, estimated schedule for acquiring use of the MLP(s), and the length of time the MLP(s) would be required for a particular activity,” the agency stated in a request for information.

Other options for the platforms could include modifying them for use in oil rigs, artificial reefs or even museum exhibits. Deconstruction is also being considered.

Each of the three platforms is two storeys tall, weigh 8.2 million pounds, with a platform of about 160 feet by 135 feet.

Responses are due Sept. 6 and you can check out the RFI here.

5 Replies to “Now’s Your Big Chance To Use NASA’s Shuttle Launcher Platforms”

  1. Since there are three of them use one as a museum piece and allow the public to tour it. Maybe even give short rides since it drives so slow.

  2. One of the birds is the firebird,
    which tells him to hop on its back or Baba Yaga will eat him. He does
    so and the Baba Yaga rushes him and grabs the firebird by its tail. The
    firebird leaves with Ivan, leaving Baba Yaga behind with a fist full of
    firebird feathers. [Guterman (1973), p. 231. in a version of “The Maiden Tsar”

  3. I have an idea: Pit them against each other in the longest, most boring mile long racing events ever… Pay-per-View!

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