Sending a shuttle simulator to the Aggies

Well this is good news for space exploration efforts and for Texas. (Especially since we got robbed out of an actual space shuttle for the Johnson Space Center.)

NASA's long-running space shuttle program came to its end in 2011, but thanks to a recently signed agreement between the space agency and a Texas university, one of the winged spacecraft's iconic cockpits will continue to "fly."

The Shuttle Motion Simulator (SMS), which for more than three decades exposed astronauts to the sights, sounds, and motions they'd experience when they launched and landed on the real orbiters, is being moved 100 miles from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston to Texas A&M University in College Station. Once there, the hydraulically maneuvered platform will resume work as a simulator.

"The SMS at College Station at Texas A&M is going to be returned to be an operational simulator," Paul Hill, director of mission operations at NASA Johnson, said. "And there, more students and engineers will have the opportunity not just to see it, but actually use it to develop new operations and develop new equipment to be used by next-generation spacecraft.

(from Robert Z. Pearlman at Space.com)