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Discovery Heading Home
Kailash Nadh wrote to mention an ABC News article discussing Discovery's departure from the space station, heading for Terra Firma. From the article: "Once undocked, Discovery looped around the space station for the first full photographic survey of the orbiting outpost since the last shuttle visit in late 2002, and then sped away into the blackness. Discovery's astronauts awoke Saturday evening for a day of storing away equipment for their upcoming return. They also planned to take down an antenna, which they have used to transmit video images of the mission. "
http://www.heavens-above.com/countries.asp
Better be quick though. It's getting prety light here on the east coast.
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Fairfax Underground: Fairfax County message board and chat
... that this will likely be the last Shuttle into space and more than likely the last non-commercial manned mission into space (because I'm convinced that Virigin Galactic will get there before NASA does again) I think we should all pause and think what has been achieved by NASA in the past years. The global impact of men on the moon, satellites providing worldwide telecoms, fun with gyroscopes, all those cool sci-fi movies, their rather long software development guides, Richard Feynman's star turn at the shuttle inqury ... it's been fun.
Without manned missions NASA will probably shrink rapidly in the public mind and return to its military roots. Thanks for the memories!
I wish the astronauts a safe return however, once they are on the ground, these questions must be asked and answers obtained from the NASA bureaucracy:
1: How can the USA spend close to 2 billion dollars and have so little to show for it? The shuttle underwent so many upgrades but all in the industry were surprised that stuff was falling of the shuttle.
2: Would it be a better idea to let those who can do much with so little (read Russians), do our space work since they can do precisely that? After all, a good number of our industrial base is being out-sourced.
So cool.... two little star like dots drifting across the sky in the twilight...
(i'm in Houston)
Best NASA site for tracking:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/
The last time I watched the shuttle past to the north of my house it was entering the atmosphere( a few years ago). The most cool group of air and space craft I have ever seen. One shuttle two helocopters, one jumbo jet and a small plain; all in my view at the same time. So Cool...
The local news is saying that NASA will not renter over land anymore?
So sad that I we will never see it renter over land again. What is NASA afraid of? Another rain of bodies? Not likely. NASA please reconsider; rentry is such a sight to see.
Thank You NASA; May darwinism not shine on you today.
If GOD then: Godspeed.
If not then: Best wishes!
I don't want a pickle; I just want a Motor-Cycle! A four foot cop arrived with a five foot gun!
Enormously expensive, horribly unreliable, ill conceived. OBSOLETE. Far to big and stupid to fly. NASA's spruce goose The way forward is incremental improvement. The Chinese are using updated, but tried and true Russian technology. Imagine if the investment made in these enormoud lemons, was put into improving and updating Apollo technology. But now at the begining of the 3rd Millieum, the US is still throwing good billions after bad. Look at what NASA can achieve for the cost of just one of these useless shuttle flights. (Restocking the ISS is useless, as it's only there so the shuttle has somewhere to go) IANAA (American), so it's not my money being directly thrown away, but I was born the same year as Neil put his Footprints on the moon, and a probally older than most of you reading this, I find the lack of useful progress in Human Spaceflight astonishing. It's like watching someone spend three times the value of a new car, repairing some horrible rustbucket, and even after the money is spent, it will have a fraction of the safety features of a new vehicle. Why cannot we rid ourselves of this Lemon ?
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