r/BeAmazed • u/chinese_spongebob1 • 5h ago

Skill / Talent How was this all calculated?

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9.8k Upvotes

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1.3k

u/physicssmurf 5h ago

https://www.cordobacorp.com/move-of-the-space-shuttle-endeavour/ Explains a lot of how they did it but the tldr is meticulous planning over 2 years by a number of engineering groups and etc.

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u/Chaos-Cortex 5h ago

The things we as the “Human Race” can do when we come together almost like a hive mind… imagine we have galactic space travel by now…

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u/Metals4J 4h ago

Eh. Sorry. Best I can give you is a few pyschopathic billionaires looting the world, escalating wars, and hiding in their island bunkers.

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u/eggyrulz 3h ago

Understandable, have a nice day

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u/mikenasty 2h ago

I will not, thank you

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u/eggyrulz 1h ago

Understandable, fuck you

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u/mikenasty 1h ago

why fuck me?

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u/Classic_Mechanic5495 44m ago

‘Cause you nasty, mike.

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u/Grouchy_Big3195 4h ago

Social media has fragmented human society

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u/SuitableBlackberry75 1h ago

It's a tedious repetition of "Gilded Age"-era corruption, not something new.

Not everything is about social media and "those damned kids, and their phones!".

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u/LOSS35 23m ago

Except in the Gilded Age the robber barons had far less control over the flow of information.

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u/Reasonable_Archer_99 4h ago

We won't ever be able to go very far into space for a few reasons. Space, or rather the galaxies, are expanding away from eachother at about 1,300,000 mph. So even if we could somehow do the speed of light, you'd never catch up to most of the observable universe. We'll likely never leave the Milky Wayn

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u/ScratchLatch 3h ago

Galactic space-travel is within the galaxy. That’s already possible over long time scales. Intergalactic travel between galaxies is unlikely for those reasons.

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u/GeneralKang 2h ago

1000 years ago, humans couldn't cross oceans.

200 years ago, humans couldn't fly.

100 years ago, it was impossible to visit the Moon.

50 years ago, visiting Mars was something only a robot could do, and it wouldn't last long.

Now, after 50 years, we're going back to the Moon, this time to establish a base.

If humans can survive the next 1000 years without going through another dark age, we'll be able to leave the Solar System. In another 1000, we'll be able to navigate our spiral arm, maybe even the Milky Way Galaxy. It's just a matter of time, innovation and progress.

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u/MrRourkeYourHost 1h ago

We should stop fighting each other and start preparing for war with the Klingons. It’s only a matter of time.

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u/Reasonable_Archer_99 2h ago

Maybe, but we're also far more aware of our limitations now.

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u/OGCelaris 1h ago

At each of those steps we understood our limitations. That's why we found ways around them.

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u/Krell356 54m ago

I mean, that's assuming we never make any groundbreaking discoveries. Stuff that sounded impossible a single generation ago is daily life now. All it would take is finding out teleportation, folding space, etc. is a real possibility to completely change that.

Not saying it's a reasonable assumption, but it is still a non-zero chance at this point.

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u/gerbegerger 4h ago

A galactic Empire

https://giphy.com/gifs/B6Jr28VwfxUFa

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u/M1R4G3M 4h ago

Imperium of Man

https://giphy.com/gifs/OH43wpAqHf8BYQP5jU

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u/Chaos-Cortex 4h ago

Nope def do not want this reality. Big NOPE

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u/kahn_noble 4h ago

Boomers were ill-equipped to handle the speed of technological advancement in balance with societal change. We’re fighting old wars with new tech. Hopefully, the next generations can do better.

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u/Beginning_Rush_5311 3h ago

sorry, too busy bombing countries and developing weapons because fossil fuels give old fucks more money. fuck the future

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u/BannedAgain-573 15m ago

"But that guy over there doesn't like my sports team... Or favorite fairly tale... So fuck him. I'm not helping him do shit"

-The humans more or less

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u/grnrngr 4h ago

And several aborists. ~400 trees got cut down in spots where engineering needed a helping hand/chainsaw.

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u/Pcat0 4h ago

And then more than a thousand trees were replanted in their place

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u/SwordfishOk504 3h ago

But they're cursed trees.

https://giphy.com/gifs/nKmlqFso2yn8A

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u/Bacontoad 3h ago

That's bad.

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u/Canadian_Border_Czar 3h ago

But the cursed trees decided to haunt climate change so now the earth is healing faster.

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u/conway92 1h ago

Probably also with the help of arborists.

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u/FamiliarAlt 1h ago

I wouldn’t be surprised if they used lidar to map out the path. It can give you measurements between two points within a .25 inch accuracy

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u/Fideothecat 2h ago

Yeah i think they were like like 100 years old

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u/emceeeloc 5h ago

Close the thread. We got em.

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u/amarklin 1h ago

In other words, careful preparation by smart and meticulous people dedicated to excelling at their jobs; as opposed to ignorant, lazy, slipshod, incompetent grifter- criminals who could not care less about their duties. See how that works?

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u/Suddenly_sweet 2h ago

Imagine if someone on that street decided to plant a tree in those two years.

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u/Peauu 5h ago

They have your mom walk through first to make sure there is enough clearance...

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u/kahn_noble 4h ago

Yes, 911? I’d like to report a murder.

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u/dynamo_ng 2h ago

His mom hit the third tower.

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u/UziKru 20m ago

I rate it 9/11

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u/Sea-Discussion6732 2h ago

I haven't heard a good mama joke in ages and this right hear is about as good as it gets.

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u/iamacheeto1 4h ago

GOT EM

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u/TheGreatGamer1389 4h ago

Gotta love your mom jokes.

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u/Opposite-Funny-9669 3h ago

love 'em almost as much as Pizza Hut loves OP's Mom

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u/Alternative_Equal176 5h ago

I resemble that remark...have you met my momma

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u/Mysterious-Alps-5186 4h ago

The whole neighborhood has meet your momma

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u/Facts_pls 4h ago

Astronauts on the moon have met your mama

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u/Mysterious-Alps-5186 4h ago

The uranus probe has met your momma

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u/Nathulalji 4h ago

Voyager 1 can still your mama

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u/Willyfisterbut 3h ago

I hope you've called your insurance company and let them know that you just got wrecked. I've already called the fire dept and reported the burn.

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u/MeowMaker2 4h ago

That explains how some of the trees are already out of the way

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u/Keyan_Farlander7 2h ago

Your mamma's so fat, when she sits around the house, she sits around the house.

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u/crankyanker638 4h ago

That's gonna leave a bruise....

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u/Plane-Chemical 1h ago

Fuckin gottteeemmmm

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u/sprogger 13m ago

I love how (currently) the top answer is a detailed, correct explanation of how this was achieved and the second top answer, is this.

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u/AngryScottish 5h ago

People stretching their arms out and going "yep, about there"

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u/Temporary-Truth-8041 5h ago

Close enough

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u/tdawg2k7 4h ago

I’d imagine after it cleared, someone smacked it twice

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u/Below-Average-528 3h ago

I used to know a guy who worked for a transportation company that specialized on large transports. Such a transport takes years of planning, coordinating with police, field trips to check the current state because a lot of maps are wrong and so on. Bridges may not be as strong as offically declared. You have to balance the cost of dismantling obstacles against the cost of taking another route or not doing the transport at all.

It's a crazy detailed process with almost no tolerance for mistakes. You really don't want to get stuck with some industrial vessel weighing hundreds of tons.

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u/TerponadeTea 3h ago

Yeah I would imagine the actual Space Shuttle being kind of a pain to have to detour around on the way to work if it got left there for a while

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u/Below-Average-528 3h ago

You could put it on some jacks and let people drive under it while you are figuring out what to do next. Or maybe build a museum around it.

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u/TerponadeTea 3h ago

"Take a left after the Shuttle underpass, then you can't miss it"

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u/chef_in_va 1h ago

Everyone gets a free hardhat!

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u/DramaticPinkumni 2h ago edited 52m ago

Watched a doc about the SR71 the other day and it mentioned how they cleared space along the roadways before transporting from Skunk Works in Burbank to Area 51 for testing

Funny enough, they got into an accident along the way and paid a bunch of hush money to keep the person that hit them from reporting it

Edit: here's a link to post about it

https://www.reddit.com/r/MilitaryPorn/s/V9XOEsSYRl

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u/Below-Average-528 1h ago

Keeping this secret makes it extra tricky. The SR71 is not exactly small

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u/Healthy-Change-9060 1h ago

I always wonder about that. Do thet sign a contract? I am curious in terms of politics. What's to stop a politician from taking bribes from a lobbyist, donating the money to charity, and then outing the lobbyist to the public?

What's to stop a politician from going back on their word? How do these companies and governments ensure compliance with a pay off?

What's to stop that person from reporting it to the news as soon as they got paid?

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u/quietobserver1 1h ago

I imagine politicians are motivated by the prospect of continued future money from a happy donor.

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u/DigitalUnlimited 1h ago

lawsuits. that's really the only recourse in my understanding is they can sue to get the money back

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u/PiccoloAwkward465 2h ago

Yeah I had to move drilling equipment over a bridge to a barrier island. The bridge wasn’t strong enough for the drill rig, not even close. So we flew them over with helicopters lol.

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u/Victor_Korchnoi 2h ago

My roommate used to do the planning for transporting the SpaceX rockets from LA to Cape Canaveral.

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u/all_fair 1h ago

So basically it's as hard as it seems

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u/Educational_Remove58 32m ago

I do exactly that for a living and you are correct. Years of planning, permits beyond permits beyond permits. Tons of people to coordinate. Street intersections to rebuild. Bridges to analyze. Wires to lift/bury underground.

Starts with a phonecall about moving something ludicrously unpractical to move and a bunch of madlads already finding solutions to move it.

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u/Batmanswrath 5h ago

With a measuring device I'd imagine..

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u/jenethith 5h ago

Nah they just had a giant human stick his arms out to measure distance and walk the path with his arms out.

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u/Silly-Power 4h ago

Nah, they built an exact scale model of the city then pushed a model shuttle through it to make sure it could. 

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u/PervlovianResponse 5h ago

Stick ruler

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u/Werechupacabra 4h ago

Measure twice, move once.

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u/poum 5h ago

Looks like it was in the US so I imagine they used washing machines and big macs as measuring devices. 

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u/FrameJump 5h ago

This is mostly length, so they probably used Subway Foot Longs. Big Macs and washing machines are mostly used volume measurements, and sometimes weight.

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u/poum 4h ago

Ah damn, getting my measuring units confused again. 

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u/FrameJump 3h ago

It wouldn't be an American unit of measurement if you weren't at least a little confused.

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u/DMCinDet 5h ago

are washing machines an American stereotype I didnt know about?

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u/James-the-Bond-one 4h ago

Not to be confused with the smaller European washing machine. 

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u/Below-Average-528 3h ago

The standard is school buses, football fields and bananas.

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u/Tamara0205 4h ago

They seem to measure volume in "Olympic sized pools" and area in "football fields". Idk why, but I see it a lot.

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u/Jeffers315 4h ago

I mean if washing machines and big macs get you to the moon, why not?

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u/MrBillyLotion 4h ago

Hey, washing machine and Big Mac units were used to build the Golden Gate Bridge and a few other few things, I’m good with it and it’s fun to see someone clowning the units of measurement they used while transporting a space craft

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u/AngryScottish 3h ago

Bullets. Just shoot things and measure bullet drop.

"Yarp, dat dar be 3/64 of a hen's ass check"

Source: am American, despite the username

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u/eltrotter 4h ago

Rigorous maritime standards

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u/needssomefun 2h ago

They used a perfectly calibrated banana for scale!

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u/Clean_Animal_9819 2h ago

Dont forget the math. They definitely used math.

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u/Zerophx 5h ago

They winged it

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u/Sumfing-Wong 4h ago

Ba dum tsss

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u/rjsjf 3h ago

not like it's rocket science or anything

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u/chalkiez 5h ago

It's not rocket science.

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u/Pentecost_II 4h ago

They couldn't just have flown to the destination?

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u/KristnSchaalisahorse 3h ago

Unfortunately, the parking lot was a few feet too short to serve as a runway.

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u/thisisthisshit 3h ago

This is when they were taking it to a museum.

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u/attackplango 3h ago

It belongs in a museum!

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u/tomcat2285 3h ago

They did, they flew it to LAX from where it landed. The commute to the museum it's going to be in is what you are seeing here. Atlantis is really the only space shuttle to land in the same place it now resides. 

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u/wurmsrus 1h ago

"Atlantis is really the only space shuttle to land in the same place it now resides" technically true but Discovery's trip from Dulles to Udvar-Hazy was much shorter and probably much easier than Endeavour's from LAX to California Science Center. There's even a paved path inbetween runway 19l/1r and Udvar-Hazy so they wouldn't have had to use Route 28

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u/turbulentFireStarter 2h ago

Homeboy what. You think every museum has a runway next to it?

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u/ggb003 5h ago

You think moving the space ship around earth was the difficult part?

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u/Upstairs-Hedgehog575 1h ago

There are fewer trees in space. 

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u/Int6Iknowwhatimdoing 4h ago

I was about to type up something similar. Like bro, they're going to space. I think they can bust out some measuring tape for a parade.

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u/EconomyDoctor3287 3h ago

I mean in space it ain't colliding with anything

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u/Adventurous_Egg_9500 3h ago

Until one piece of space trash rips through you

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u/Active_Violinist_360 2h ago

Lol have you seen the amount of space junk

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u/wildspo 1h ago

No. I haven’t been there yet. Especially in this economy.

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u/MasterAd1460 2h ago

It’s not rocket surgery

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u/Fuugazii 4h ago

Haha, my reply was similar. These people do actual rocket science

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u/Corspin 4h ago

Bro. Nasa calculated the orbital trajectories for stuff going to the moon. And you're impressed they can also calculate trajectory over a simple street? XD

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u/Geteafem 4h ago

I know this was not done today. But with present tech, driving that route with a radar/lidar mapping the surroundings. And going over that data with visualization and angles of the truck etc you could do it fairly easy.

Edit: (for a team of engineers and hauling-specialists)

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u/pissagainstwind 4h ago

Nah, these days they'll measure everything, load into ChatGPT and ask it to plan a route and it will do it in 10 minutes.

Too bad for these 3-5 houses needed to demolish to make room because the AI got it mostly right

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u/sharklaserguru 1h ago

"You're absolutely right to push back on that. When I said the load would fit through I didn't account for the corporeal nature of buildings along the way."

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u/pennyforyourthohts 2h ago

Guaranteed they used some type of environmental mapping technology to do that.

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u/Apptubrutae 2h ago

It wasn’t THAT long ago, this is basically what they did

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u/Accurate-Western-421 2h ago

It was done with LiDAR for the Endeavor. I know several of the folks involved with it. LiDAR and mobile mapping systems are not new by any stretch. The general public has only recently become more aware of them due to autonomous vehicle tech.

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u/_vr_1_ 4h ago

Couldn't they just fly that thing to the destination /s

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u/TapedButterscotch025 3h ago

They actually did fly in to LAX, and it did several passes of major parks and beaches. I remember that day, we took a break and headed to the Korean Friendship Bell park at San Pedro. It was awesome.

Then they had to take it on city streets to the museum it was ending up in, over by USC. Sadly USC nor Exposition Park have a runway.

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u/Jynkoh 4h ago

I mean these guys used a potato calculator back in the day to compute how to travel to and land on astral bodies far in the vaccum of space and come back safely.

This is nothing to them.

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u/Regular_Dust_7160 5h ago

They figured out how to get to the moon I think navigating some streets was the easy part

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u/Adingdongshow 4h ago

Bunch of idiots, why don’t they fly it?

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u/Likeabhas 4h ago

I mean... It's NASA :P

This probably was like a welcome distraction typa logistical homework rather than massively difficult one

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u/Ill-Condition-5054 4h ago

Give me and my buddies a 24 and a couple skateboards and we’d have that done by Sunday 🤣

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u/TheDarkLord401 4h ago

Carefully.

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u/r_a_d_ 4h ago

Drive around with a big sideways stick of the same width?

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u/eyeinthesky0 4h ago

There were at least half a dozen high paid men that slapped the fuselage and said “she’ll fit.”

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u/Fuugazii 4h ago

You know the phrase, it's not like it's rocket science? Well these people do the actual rocket science. I'm sure they can handle some measurements lol

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u/oasuke 5h ago

They did a mock run using the shuttle's measurements.

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u/ColonelStone 4h ago

With one guy going "you're good, you're good, you're... PIVOT!"

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u/RotoDog 4h ago

Sir, our window of opportunity is now. In two months the Johnson’s oak tree will be too big.

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u/PoopSoBig-CantFlush 4h ago

Ants when a dead gecko is behind the fridge

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u/boladeputillos 4h ago

Beautiful

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u/CrasVox 4h ago

NASA is actually pretty good at their job

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u/UglyYinzer 3h ago

? Bro its a rocket ship... why didnt they just fly it to the new spot 🙄

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u/CouchRottington 1h ago

Are they stupid?

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u/Broad_Extent_278 3h ago

I mean they calculated a lot for space

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u/Obvious-Farmer8836 4h ago

Verrrrrrry carefully

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u/morey56 4h ago

They said “Bring a chainsaw for Mrs. Winnigan’s tree. Just in case.”

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u/Icedraven01 4h ago

Thats great meanwhile at the grocery store the guy can't park straight next to me in his own stall.

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u/AcrobaticEmergency42 4h ago

This was in part awesome math, and a case of "trust me, I'm an engineer".

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u/powelly 4h ago

Carefully

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u/GreatService9515 4h ago

NASA scientists

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u/Whiskey22Whiskey 4h ago

I think they did some math

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u/Ser_Optimus 4h ago

It's actually not that hard. Just tedious and expensive if someone fucks up.

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u/llcdrewtaylor 4h ago

Well. For starters it's freaking NASA. After that it's just numbers and measurements along the entire path. Probably took a long time to plan out.

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u/bluehexx 3h ago

How was this all calculated?

Carefully. Very, very carefully.

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u/Fuck_Ppl_Putng_U_Dwn 3h ago

It's not rocket science 😉

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u/Pazerclaw 3h ago

You know when you told your math teacher "when am I ever going to use this in the real world?" This is a time when you did use it in the real world.

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u/chargoggagog 3h ago

Why not just fly it to its destination, it’s a spaceship after all

/s