A Look Inside the Space Shuttle "Garage"

By Nancy Atkinson - March 26, 2010 10:27 AM UTC | Space Exploration

This is home movies at their finest. Astronaut Mike Massimino takes us inside the garage of space shuttle Discovery -- also known as the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF)-- for a behind the scenes look at the work that is done on the orbiters, as well as seeing some of the training for the astronauts on the upcoming STS-131 mission. This is part of a series of "behind the scenes for STS-131" videos that Massimino hosts, which you can find on the

NASA TV You Tube channel

. Mass brings humor and sense of wonder to these videos, and is great at doing public outreach for NASA.

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Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com