🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1if7qfINNdne@savoy.cc.williams.edu> anderson@Williams.EDU () writes:
>... How is the orbiter stack
>supported on the moblie launch platform?  Is it "standing" on SRB's?

The orbiter hangs on the external tank, which hangs on the SRBs.  The SRBs
are bolted to the pad at their aft skirts (just above the nozzles proper).
Explosive nuts fire, simultaneously with SRB ignition, to release them.

>For that matter
>how are any of these launch vehicles supported prior to launch?  I can't
>see the engine nozzles supporting all that weight.

They don't.  Pad support fixtures are part of the vehicle, usually in the
vicinity of the engines because that's where the heavy structure is already.

>Also, as a sidebar, what is
>the function of the two rectangular shaped items in front of the wings of the
>orbiter while on the pad?  I seem to recall some reference to and umbilical
>housing of some sort.

That's what they are; they carry fuel plumbing and suchlike to the orbiter.
-- 
"God willing... we shall return."       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
       -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry