Mij testing photos from Flickr

one more

https://flic.kr/p/pEhYE1

www.flickr.com/.../photostream

another try

and one more try

Shuttle by calibraska1998, on Flickr

That's what I'm talking about Mij!  Nice pics!  Keep them coming.  Bet you have the best job ever!

Eagle90

That was a pic of Endevour at Dryden right before she was flown to LA for retirement. I think is was in 2012. I might have few more pictures of Endevour, I'll do some looking.

Do you have any pics of a shuttle which just returned from space? I want to build the Discovery's last flight to Dulles, as it flew to the Smithsonian weathered, just as it returned from space.

I don't have pictures of a shuttle right after returning from space. Not that I didn't want some but security was pretty tight after the orbiter had landed. Shuttles didn't land at Edwards very often in the later years and it was always a media circus when one did so they kept everyone far away. That and I believe some of the processing after landing was dealing with nasty hydrazine that could harmful to people close by, so it was minimum crew with a purpose was all that was allowed in close.

Mij

I wouldn't be surprised if the weathering you're seeing in the photo is from launch and re-entry. As long as they were serving their primary purpose (thermal protection) I don't think tiles were replaced for cosmetic reasons. The tiles are very delicate (from a impact damage perspective) and I believe they avoided ferrying the shuttles in any kind or precipitation to avoid tile damage. The tiles are expensive so I doubt they were replaced just to ferry it to the final locations in an era of restricted budgets. If a museum (unlike the Smithsonian) wanted their shuttle looking pristine it would make more sense to replace tiles after it was delivered. Never worked on the shuttle program so this is just a best guess from my observation and experience.

I watched a Nova program on Netflix the other day called "Shuttle Discovery's Last Mission" or something like that, in which NASA ferried the Discovery from Kennedy to Dulles. Smithsonian's curator wanted the shuttle as is, no replaced tiles, just as it was after it's last flight.

It just looked so cool, and I wanted to recreate that look.

Steve

modelcrazy, it looks like this is what you're after.

www.collectspace.com/.../news-060111b.html

Mij

Perfect!

Thanks  Mij