* Photo: Nathan Kirkman * Need to test a spaceship? For the past two decades, rocket scientists have been trucking prototypes to NASA's Space Power Facility in Sandusky, Ohio. The site's 122-foot-high aluminum vacuum chamber, the biggest on the planet, simulates the harsh conditions of outer space. But to accommodate the next craft in line for testing—Orion, the agency's new vehicle for human space missions—the facility is going to require some remodeling.

When Orion launches in 2014, it will be steeped in radar and radio frequencies generated by its own systems. So NASA is outfitting the chamber with antennas that'll bombard the vehicle with electromagnetic waves to see whether the controls go haywire. The chamber also lets researchers test the craft in an airless environment at temperatures ranging from -260 to 175 degrees Fahrenheit.

In an adjacent wing, NASA is building two more test bays. The first—designed to gauge how Orion's booster rocket, the punishingly powerful Ares I, could affect the craft—is a 2,500-ton concrete platform (anchored by steel rods in bedrock 50 feet down) topped with hydraulic actuators that will shake the 75,000-pound Orion with 45 minutes of intense sinusoidal vibrations along all three major axes. The second is another sealed chamber lined with nitrogen-gas-powered horns to blast the module with 163-dB noise, mimicking the acoustics of reaching for the sky at Mach 4.8. To avoid irking the neighbors, NASA is installing a soundproof concrete door that's 2 feet thick and 57 feet tall. Renovations are set to be completed by 2012, so that the tests may be run before Orion heads for the International Space Station. That should leave plenty of time to shake and rattle before it's time to rock and roll.

Photo: Courtesy NASAStart Previous: 3 Smart Things About Referees Next: Clive Thompson on Remembering Not to Remember in an Age of Unlimited Memory Free Spirit: NASA Recreates Mars Surface to Liberate Rover

NASA's Icy-Hot Rocket Engine

Oddities From NASA's Massive Image Archive

40 Years After Apollo 11, NASA Maps Out the Future