How I spent my summer vacation – on the Galileo

Today I got to hang out with a prop of some repute:

Awesome!

tre Cool!

excellent! Are you bidding??

"What a piece of junk!"...sorry wrong franchise. Wow the years have not been kind to the old girl. I would love see it in person.

Nobby said:

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excellent! Are you bidding??

Definitely not. It's just too big a job. Literally. This thing is big!

BTW, here's a detail shot showing the typical surface. Not good.

That thing is knackered. Any restoration would basically mean a complete rebuild and repaint, preserving very little of the original.

Awesome that you spent some time with it though and thanks for sharing the photos, nice to see the old gal.

Wow is this the same one that was last known to be in Akron, Ohio in the place that got demolished?

Kindest Regards,

Alan

asy0uw1sh said:

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Wow is this the same one that was last known to be in Akron, Ohio in the place that got demolished?

Kindest Regards,

Alan

Sort of. The reports of the "demolishing" were greatly exaggerated. Both the facility and the Galileo still survive.

Here's some additional shots showing the interior. The water-stained panels are original.

really neat to see! Thanks. Would love to see shots from every side.

It can be done...she can be repaired as good as new.With the talent that is here on this board anything is possible if they just can get their hands on her.I have seen worse brought back to former glory.Thanks for sharing the big mystery from my childhood.They found her and she is still with us.

Thanks for sharing pics wit us newworld. She gave us so many great memories

It's amazing that it survived (such as it is) all of these years. Thank you for sharing the photos of the old girl and best wishes to those that take on the restoration project so that she can reclaim all of her former glory!

thanks for the pics, Don! Great stuff!

Tom

Wow really neat to see this cool piece of sci-fi history. I would like even more to see it fully restored one day.

I get the feeling that the only thing that could be done would be to preserve her in her current state and build a one to one restored replica based off laser scans of the original.

Very interesting to see .. thanks for posting the pics

Thanks Don for sharing these pics. That must have been a great experience. I too always wondered what happened to her.

Guess she was never in the hands of a true fan with the ability to preserve her from the start. A big prop to have to deal with though.

Jon

greatwazoo42 said:

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I get the feeling that the only thing that could be done would be to preserve her in her current state and build a one to one restored replica based off laser scans of the original.

Exactly what I thought too

Jsimon999 said:

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Guess she was never in the hands of a true fan with the ability to preserve her from the start. A big prop to have to deal with though.

Jon

Someone who wasn't a true fan would have had the shuttle demolished years ago.
She may have lacked means, doesn't mean she lacked heart.

That's very true. I'm sure she did what she could.

I myself would have tarped it for as long as necessary until I could find someone who could give it the conditions it needed to maintain it properly. Especially when I saw the beginning signs of damage/aging.


Jon

Jsimon999 said:

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That's very true. I'm sure she did what she could.

I myself would have tarped it for as long as necessary until I could find someone who could give it the conditions it needed to maintain it properly. Especially when I saw the beginning signs of damage/aging.


Jon

You've hit the nail on the head, Jon. $50 worth of plastic and this piece would now be in far better shape than it's in now. It was obvious to me that it had been left out in the weather after the various "restorations". Had it at least been covered and protected from moisture it would not have to be a complete restart in restoring.

Having seen the owner's home, I can say that she treated this the same way she treated the rest of her property.

Bronson BB said:

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Someone who wasn't a true fan would have had the shuttle demolished years ago.
She may have lacked means, doesn't mean she lacked heart.

I mean no offense, but let's be clear. She let that thing sit year after year without trying to sell it. It literally melted away. It was unnecessarily exposed to weather (buy tarps!!) and time. That didn't take heart – it took neglect. Had she moved on it 10 years ago she would have actually gotten a better price and the piece would have been in better condition. We'll never know why she waited, only that she did. She herself came to call it "a white elephant", so obviously there was little affection left. I judge the situation only by the actions taken. Or not taken, in this case.

Demolition was never an option to her, IMO. She saw it as valuable IN ANY CONDITION and was waiting for a payday which she finally got.

It was heartbreaking to stand in front of that piece and see its awful state, knowing that its caretaker literally took no care.

newworld said:

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I mean no offense, but let's be clear. She let that thing sit year after year without trying to sell it. It literally melted away. It was unnecessarily exposed to weather (buy tarps!!) and time. That didn't take heart – it took neglect. Had she moved on it 10 years ago she would have actually gotten a better price and the piece would have been in better condition. We'll never know why she waited, only that she did. She herself came to call it "a white elephant", so obviously there was little affection left. I judge the situation only by the actions taken. Or not taken, in this case.

Demolition was never an option to her, IMO. She saw it as valuable IN ANY CONDITION and was waiting for a payday which she finally got.

It was heartbreaking to stand in front of that piece and see its awful state, knowing that its caretaker literally took no care.

Ah.
Well....

If you've ever watched the show 'Hoarders', the subjects of each episode do much the same.

Meh, seems to me the deterioration to the shuttle over the last 10+ years did no more damage to its original parts than it had already suffered prior to its first restoration. You've seen the photos of it surrounded by cars and buses in a paved storage yard with the roof collapsed, right? That was in the early 1980s. (I wish I had asked David Silver for a copy of the video he shot of it in that state--see other thread for my story on that.)

A lot of previous restoration work has been ruined, but that wasn't original anyway.