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Space Shuttle Endeavour Launches (at last)
mumkin writes: "Hey, STS-108 has finally launched! In addition to bringing a new crew to the International Space Station and performing an EVA, Endeavour will be releasing Starshine 2, another orbiting disco-ball for ground-based observers to track."
blech, that first picture on the "starshine 2" link is more startling than goatse.cx.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
So what exactly does this massive student project satellite do?
They also sent up a memorial for the 911 attacks. Most importantly, this explains that oddly shaped cloud I saw at 5:30 today.
In addition to the things already mentioned, the shuttle also has 6000 American Flags, which when returned from space, will be given to the members of the families of the World Trade Center victims.
Last I heard, there was a possible problem with a piece of something stuck in the way of some module (probably a Soyez, I gues) attached to the ISS and they didn't want the shuttle to knock the whole thing loose when it docked. Anyone know if they got that problem solved? I was wondering if someone had to spacewalk to get the thing freed up or something.
Did anyone else see the "Russian Rocket burning up in the atmosphere" last friday at about 10:30 CST?
It was very interesting looking, almost looked like 15 or so meteorites....Now what I wanna know, is why this has gotten absolutly _no_ media attention at all. And Im wondering what this russian rocket was carrying for payload....maybe a new spy satellite or something fun like that...*grin*
As the time goes by, we will see more of this russian style problem solving skills, and ISS will look more and more like Mir. That's the law of large technical systems - they get fucked up.
Having worked with aero-sace folks for 12 years (thank god I am out) the only thing that surprises me is that all this shit actually works - it is way to complex for that.. I blame sheer luck. ;-)
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
Who new, that a few physicists, trying to login into SLAC library, will code up the U.S first web server, sweaty cosmonauts will need the development of the Gore-Tex, and you will get you ticket by a laser radar.
Fundamental research pays. Many times over.
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
Go to Heavens-Above and enter your location on earth, and it'll provide you with all the info you need to spot the ISS, the Shuttle, and a host of other orbiting objects as they pass over you before sunrise or after sunset. The site has a wealth of other information about satellites and space exploration in general as well, so it is with a very heavy heart that I expose one of my absolute favorite sites to the eminent threat of slashdottery.
I invite you to check for ISS/shuttle sightings on the nasa website. Also Heavens above might be updated with the shuttle orbital information within the next few hours.
For example, I see there will be a nice pass almost straight above San Francisco, Thr Dec 06, 05:26 PM for ISS, and 11 minutes later (05:37 PM) the shuttle catching up with it! So I suspect similar opportunies for other US cities in the coming days, weather permitting of course.
Don't expect to see more than a moving point of light, but it is still quite cool.
Can you see billions of dollars made and lost in the web craze? Hard to imagine it is just 1991.. ;)
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
oh, and here's CNN's little piece on it: Lights in the Sky
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
STS-108 also contains GAS Payloads...which are basically just canisters that can be rented, usually by universities and space agencies. Experiments are flown in these canisters and they range anywhere from boiling water to growing plants, testing the effects of microgravity. I am the webmaster of the Utah State University GAS Team and we sent up a payload on this shuttle with 3 powered experiments and a few passive ones. Glad the shuttle finally got off the ground!
Why do we bother sending people to space when there are so many problems on earth?... Terrorist attacks against America, terrorist attacks against Israel, unemployment, economy problems, homelessness, bad education, health care problems, etc...
Maybe to remind the world that there is a lot more to our existance than out (mostly) petty quarrels. Maybe to inspire a new generation to strive for a better education. Mabey to conduct zero-g research that will indirectly lead to inexpensive soulutions to many health issues. There have been countless spinoffs from the space program and there will be many more. I think it is a great way to spend that small fraction of our budget.
So 25,000 students will be monitoring it - it wasn't built by 25,000 students
Check out the mission summary.
Here it is, in full:
UF-1
Launch Date: Dec. 5, 2001
Launch Vehicle: U.S. Space Shuttle Endeavour: STS-108
Elements: Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM), Photovoltaic Module batteries
1. Provides for research work by delivering experiment racks for the U.S. Laboratory and two storage racks.
Glad to know that NASA is spending their $600M well on this shuttle launch instead of sending three probes to Mars, something to Pluto, or researching a new technology.
Seriously, can't this stuff be delivered on unmanned craft? (Well, obviously not the new crew, but they could catch a Russian Soyuz for a quarter of the cost)
In Soviet Russia, sig types you!
That is the extreamist viewpoint.
Why am I driving a nice car and living in a nice appartment when people are staving all over the world? The answer is we can't just stop the world and fix one problem. Then focus on another, then another. We would be running back and forth, never making headway. Some people deal with one problem, others deal with another.
Americans are driving fancy cars and have 3 to 4 tvs per family because most of the world is poor and they can be worked as cheap labor. It is in our interest to see that the world's problems never are solved. If they were we would not be able to overconsume goods that are made in the poorer nations. Our economy would fall out.
Vietnam, China, Mexico etc. do most of the manufacturing of goods while Western European, the US, Japan etc. use their massive capital to buy the goods. It is the most dastardly system you could think of. They do all the work for cheap and we enjoy just because our economies are stronger. One day those nations will learn they have the true power, they are the foundation of the worlds economy, they hold the power, not us.
How would you like to be trapped in 2001 forever, hmm? If that Orwellian future isn't frightening, I don't know what is...
Heck, for that matter, why even spend money on something as frivolous as entertainment?
Let's go ahead and take every dollar spent on anything beyond the basic human needs and give it away to everyone until the whole world is one boring village of mediocre pan-ethnic morons who weigh exactly the average weight, eat exactly enough of the right food, and who slit their wrists when they turn 30 out of boredom.
Realistically, that's not going to happen, but I for one believe that research is one of the main goals of the human race. What are intelligent apes good for if they don't try to learn? This is slashdot, for christ's sake, I'd give you ten to one just about everyone here (minus the trolls) is interested in learning throughout their lives.
I caught on the local 11 O'Clock news that some local highschool students were in Fla. to see the launch because they were sending some Soy Beans up for an experiement. I just looked all over the website of said news site and I couldn't find an applicable reference. But this shows that the students aren't just working on the satelite of this mission.
Wheeeee
You do not get it. More technology is not the answer.
What are we gonna do? How long can we overconsume goods and products? What will we do when there is more copper, gold, iron, coal, etc. in our landfills then there is in the ground, as the temperature keeps rising higher and higher, when there are less than 100 billion trees left in the whole world? Are we to pin all our hopes on a few scientists enabeling us to mine asteroids and distant planets and colonizing space?
That is moronic. Hopping from planet to planet and destroying each one we inhabit does not seem like a good plan for our species. We should be doing practical things now instead of putting this off. Instead of chopping down trees for paper, we should do what is better, what humans have been doing for 12,000 years. We should use grow industrial hemp and harvest it for paper. But no, we can not because Du Pont and petrol companies emerging in other nations outlawed it.
Science is not the answer to social problems like this. If Science could invent a better paper, there would be a Du Pont company that is powerful in the established order of things that would block it, politically, or just as worse the technology would be controlled by a corporation, as usual, whose only goal is to make money. We need to change our habits, not peg our hopes on a group with such a paucity as scientists, it is madness. I do not expect the slashdot crowd to see that technology is not the anwser. Technology only trades one problem for another. Because in our society of specialists you do not see people mining coal and transporting to power stations to burn for your electricity, it is easy to forget this. You just plug in and you do not even know or care how it got there. Most of us do not want to see the trade offs.
You can not avoid them, though, they are everywhere. Go from a urban area in summer to a residental one and you will notice the temperature drop in most areas as you move away from the city. Go from a village to a nearby city and you will notice an increase in temperature in most areas. What will we do as the heat rises, from our wanton lifestyle? Continue our lifestyle as is and hope scientists can solve our problems, or socially solve a social problem? I think the answer is clear.
I have little adulation to give for scientists. Most of them seem to have a sort of religious faith in technology. They think technology is some sort of bloody magic and that it does not create problems of its own, which is erroneous. It seems philosophy, is out and plunging forward without thinking about consquences is the big thing these days in the scientific community.
The space program is of little importance. We should try to harmonize our lifestyle more with what we know is good for our environment so it is habitable for a long time to come. Social improvements can make life more enjoyable for humanity than technological advancements under capitalism, that the people in affluent nations can only enjoy. Would you want to live in a brutal dictatorship with high technology, where the technology would be used to make telescreens to spy on you, or a more human society that is less advanced?
I hope it's got a towel!
We miss you Douglas.
What a joke. How much longer are the American taxpayers going to let NASA waste our dollars on these "scientific" efforts? They should just turn the space program into a for-profit tourist service for bored billionaires, and spend our tax dollars on something useful like a superconducting supercollider or an AIDS vaccine.
That is the biggest bunch of crap I have ever heard. NASA is one of the few things the government funds that is actually worthwhile, and it is people like you that are causing it to get less funding than it deserves by whining that you would rather have an AIDS vaccine. If people would spend time doing something constructive like space research instead of sleeping around there wouldn't be such an outbreak of AIDS and then we wouldn't need a vaccine. And bored billionaires are the last thing that we need in space.
Oh come now. They have a launch wehicle, that is exposed to what? 5G during launch. It can reenter the atmosphere and avoid burning up. It can stay in space and survive the higher levels of radiation, but it is not durable enough to be exposed to RAIN? What's it made of? Sugar?
... maybe the B2-bomber is more expensive) can't stand up to rain, what are my chances of driving my car home from work in bad weather today?
If the most expensive wehicle on earth (well
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
They should have used french tecnology instead! Then things wold have worked more smouthly!
Vivela France!
/Michelle
I always thought there was something a little queer about NASA. I'm glad they've finally found a way to celebrate their sexuality. Ride on, space cowboy! It might not be raining men, but at least they're floating above us.
The last 500 million euro fireworks display was caused by: "The internal SRI software exception was caused during execution of a data conversion from a 64-bit floating-point number to a 16-bit signed integer value." See this link for more stuff http://www.math.ufl.edu/~cws/3114/ariane-siam.html
Actually it would be nice to put bored billionaires in space. We could even give them a free ride up there, and then charge a bundle to get them down again :-)
And if they stay, they have to pay for food, and if you thought food was expensive at the local pizzaria, you have no idea what they charge to deliver pizza to space. And no - you don't get it free of charge, if it isn't there in 30 minutes.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
No amount of faith (important, to be sure) will stop one of several very, very large rocks in space from annililating (that's "destroy" for you Windows users or left-wingers) all advanced life on the planet. That means you, pal.
God helps those who help themselves as best they can--and I believe that means we need to watch out for the one thing in space that can make a very big difference in the lives of everyone, barring some new revelation in space science.
NASA gets less than 1/2 of 1 percent of the budget. The Congress has given more money in international aid to what turned out to be a booger on a map!
Harmonize the environment, my ass! We DO need to watch what we burn and what we dump, but this is a matter of "save the humans", not the Earth. This place will keep spinning no matter how many rocks or PCP barrels land on it. The difference comes when we balance our use of technology--not forsaking it, but not worshipping it, either.
The dinosaurs are gone because they couldn't stop a rock's fall. We really can do better, or we're just as stupid.
I bet you go to college right now, or very recently. Your post is not based on the harsh reality of the world.
And, oh--it was the freaking scientists that you scorn that created the technology that allowed you to post here. Don't be a hypocrite.
/.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
This is one of the best trolls I've seen in a long time, look at how many replies you have!
You are probably exposing a beleif that your parents embedded in your brain while you were a child...
"If some people are miserable, you have no right to be happy"
or
"You have to feel guilty of having things because some others don't"
If some people choose to feel miserable or experience lack in their lives...so be it! That does not create a limitation in my ability to do exactly what I want, when I want to.
Hell, I'd rather be up there right now than down here what with the threat of anthrax, terrorist planes and nuculear war.
Why do we bother sending people to space when there are so many problems on earth?
/. when you could be off working in a soup kitchen?
Why do you bother posting to
Tim
What will we do when there is more copper, gold, iron, coal, etc. in our landfills then there is in the ground, as the temperature keeps rising higher and higher, when there are less than 100 billion trees left in the whole world? Are we to pin all our hopes on a few scientists enabeling us to mine asteroids and distant planets and colonizing space?
Science gave us the ability to recycle. Recycling is vital to any long term space mission. It is likely more recycling technologies will be developed from the space program.
Technology only trades one problem for another. Because in our society of specialists you do not see people mining coal and transporting to power stations to burn for your electricity, it is easy to forget this.
Alternative power sources are also vital to space missions. Solar Energy was pioneered by NASA.
Social improvements can make life more enjoyable for humanity than technological advancements under capitalism, that the people in affluent nations can only enjoy. Would you want to live in a brutal dictatorship with high technology, where the technology would be used to make telescreens to spy on you, or a more human society that is less advanced?
I would rather live in a society where I won't die of a broken limb from a simple infection. I would rather live in a society where dictatorship is obsolete. Technology provides communication that allows the masses, the true power in this world, to unite against any such form of government. We've existed for millions of years without science and got nowhere, socially or otherwise. It was technology that changed us from club-swinging apes to who we are today. The space program is a driving force of technology.
Prediction of first radio message sent to the Starshine satellite:
Good morning Starshine, the earth says "hello".
- Mike
You notice it's a Troll, then you go ahead and engage the conversation anyway. That's fucking rich.....
"Hey, look, a glass of hemlock! glug, glug, glug..."