In article . com,
says...

On 25/10/2011 10:39 AM, Brian Thorn wrote:

Of course, Shuttle lugged along 50,000 lbs. of goodies in the payload
bay...

It never (or very rarely) carried that much. What was the heaviest
payload _actually_ carried?

That and flights to ISS often carried a lot of "payload" which wasn't
*useful* payload for ISS. For example, you can't count the mass of the
MPLM as useful payload, only the *contents* of that MPLM which were
transferred to ISS. The obvious exception to this was the *one* MPLM
which was converted to a Permanent Logistics Module as was left at ISS
to serve as storage space.

Jeff
--
" Ares 1 is a prime example of the fact that NASA just can't get it
up anymore... and when they can, it doesn't stay up long. "
- tinker