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Shuttle Discovery Lands Safely
Tuxedo Jack writes "CNN and NASA report that the space shuttle Discovery has landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Concerns for its safe return were raised when spacewalks were necessary to repair the vehicle when external components were damaged; however, the shuttle landed safely with Commander Eileen Collins at the control yoke."
Welcome home Discovery. Hmm... wonder if any of the crew are /.'ers?
one small step for her - one giant step for womankind.
[Connection closed by foreign host]
Just curious...
I want a new world. I think this one is broken.
Thats good news but what about the future of the shuttles, given all the problems?
They finally decided to land after I woke up at both 4am Eastern yesterday and 5am today to watch it land, to no avail. I suppose they HAD to land sometime.
It'll be interesting to see what damage has ocurred...
If the damaged areas they noticed in orbit, are worse after re-entry...
Cheers,
Richard
I hope safe returns in the future aren't news but instead are commonplace. Hopefully NASA's shift in ideology regarding spacecraft design will usher in a new era in incident free missions.
I slept thought my 5 AM alarms and was going to be late for work, but the sonic booms woke me up. I wonder how many people forgot or did not know about the Space Shuttle landing. My family thought it was an earthquake.
But after having done this since 1961, you'd think that we'd be at a point where getting "those brave souls" back to Earth in one piece was mundane.
Though it would be wonderful to have the space program re-examined and reformulated with realistic goals, unencumbered designs, and brave (not foolhardy) leadership, I doubt that we'll get anything more than another round of shuttle flights until the next one breaks up. Then we can expect more hand wringing, indecisiveness, and basically a whole lot more of nothing.
Space is the biggest challenge Mankind will ever embark upon. It's sad to see that almost 45 years has passed and we're still crossing our fingers hoping that things go okay.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
Excellent job by the shuttle crew and everyone at NASA behind them on this successful and safe mission.
One word sums it up: YeeHaw!!!
Now how do they get the shuttle back to FL so it can be launched again ?
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
Eileen Collins
It's important that we have female shuttle pilots.
I mean, what if the core of the earth suddenly stopped spinning, and we needed to send a team down to jump start the core? If the core did that they could probably make a movie about the core doing that...
They could call it "The middle of the planet"... or something.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
I wonder what the cost of landing at Edwards vs. Kennedy is. Now that have to put it on top of a 747 and truck it back to Florida. That can't be cheap, and they're not exactly rolling in dough.
Jerry
http://www.cyvin.org/
-Mark
Well I'm glad they made it back safely. Those astronauts are some of the bravest people I know of, along with those in our Armed Forces.
Congratulations Discovery!
A man with a gun is called a citizen. A man without a gun is called a subject.
I love this page, and it seems to be an opportune moment.
Land the shuttle yourself you macho.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
There is something inherently sexy about a female space captain. Even Janeway got me bothered every now and again.
who said that they were waiting for a nice picture perfect sunny landing were wrong, as they landed before dawn.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
I hate to say this, but I'm glad this is over, and we can stop getting the minute-by-minute news reports of every damn thing the crew did.
"This just in: Shuttle still in space. NASA still monitoring."
"The inner airlock hatch will be shut now. Then, later, the outer hatch will open."
"The shuttle just vented 11 mL of waste gas into space."
"Commander Eileen just burped."
Sheeesh.
(Note well: I'm not slamming NASA, the space program, or our astronauts. (Not in this comment, anyway.) I'm slamming our culture of media sensationalism and short attention spans.)
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I was going to crack a woman driver joke too then I realized in all likelyhood she has more driving/flying ability in her baby finger than I ever will have... =(
- Toby
During the approach, there was an article on cnn.com that said something along the lines of "when the shuttle speed drops from supersonic to subsonic, there is a sonic boom ..."
Yikes. Horrendously bogus physics, on international news.
From the NASA coverage:
8:07 a.m. - Discovery's wings leveling as it approaches the landing site. Now that the orbiter has gone subsonic, Commander Eileen Collins has assumed control. She'll fly Discovery on a 194-degree right overhead turn to align with runway 22.
Sure sounds like she's landing it to me.
Nothing like the possibility of disaster to bring out everyone's interest. This was probably the most watched space mission since Apollo 13...
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
With the good news out of NASA this morning, everyone has forgotten about the the CCBB! ;)
Thankfully the media "Deathwatch" comes to an end. Ever get the feeling that they are hoping for disasters to happen? They are.
"But after having done this since 1961, you'd think that we'd be at a point where getting "those brave souls" back to Earth in one piece was mundane."
While I agree with the rest of your comment, it's worth pointing out that 45 years is a drastically short period of time in human history. How long did we sail the seas before trans-oceanic travel stopped being experimental and perilous? We're so used to the incredibly fast pace of recent technological advancement that we forget that not everything comes quick. Expecting spaceflight to have become mundane in so short a time may not be reasonable.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
according to nasa's site:
8:07 a.m. - Discovery's wings leveling as it approaches the landing site. Now that the orbiter has gone subsonic, Commander Eileen Collins has assumed control. She'll fly Discovery on a 194-degree right overhead turn to align with runway 22.
=More than press a button
My wife and I were just getting the baby back to sleep when this loud BOOOOOM blew the curtains in a little. (Baby slept through it.) We just looked at each other and I went off to check the CalTech Earthquake advisory site for local quakes. My wife suggested the shuttle, but then pointed out it was to land in Florida. No quakes obviously, then I waited to hear sirens rushing to the site of a gas explosion. None of that either. Maybe one of the Perseids was a little bigger than normal--but there wasn't any light. I finally saw that Discovery landed safely at 5:12 PDT at Edwards AFB--about two hundred miles away. Pretty cool.
blarg.
Great idea. We'll stop the space program, let all the satellites fall out of the sky, do without phones, tv, weather forecasts, etc and send the 200 million to some dictator who keeps it all for himself and the people still starve. Shuttle launches aren't a waste IMO. The ISS is a huge waste though. We would be better off with one outside of LEO or between the earth and the moon.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
The space shuttle program has been allocated 3.2 billion per year over the last three years. We have seen 1 successful shuttle mission in that time. With the program currently grounded, again, we will not see another this year (it is pretty safe to say). So by their own published number, this mission cost us taxpayers 6.6 billion. That's a bit higher than the 200 million estimate.
I'm as happy as the next person that the shuttle landed safely and things went OK. However the success (?) of this mission does not change the hard reality that the Shuttle is a piece of outdated, unsafe and overpriced hardware. It guzzles up valuable resources in terms of manpower, time and money and has precious little to show for all the efforts.
I only hope that some bureaucrat in Washington doesn't feel that "Alls well that ends well. A little more money and the shuttle program can be up and running again."
Personally I feel that NASA should focus on whats its good at which is space research. Lets leave the manned bit of things to the private sector.
. . . to Edwards' South, West, or North gates will take
What?
actually, they do land the shuttle. Deorbit is automatic and all, but the final approch is done by the commander manually. Check out the landing 101 on the Nasa web site before spreding bullshit all over the place.
1 01.html
http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight/launch/landing
bleh, gotta love the delay in pages updating.
It really makes me wonder... how many of these 'safety' problems have manifested themselves before. I have a strong feeling that the heat shield on the shuttle is more robust than they make it out to be. I refuse to believe that in all 100+ missions, gap fillers and thermal blankets have never shaken loose. Look at it this way, it took a chunk of foam blasting a hole in the heat shield before it failed.
Government's view of the economy: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving,regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it.
Please, I like to believe women don't do #2.
Finance tutorials and more! Understandfinance
The Shuttle is only computer controlled through the supersonic portion of flight, at around ~50,000 feet the controls are given to the Copilot for a relatively quick period. Following that, the pilot at around 30,000 feet assumes control, and guides the shuttle in while maintaining a trajectory within the glide slope.
Before posting mis-information like you've done today, check your facts first.
I think since we are talking shuttle here you can assume that I was talking about the shuttle.
How exactly do you propose going about feeding all of the starving people in the world? How long will it take for this to happen so we can move on with things? Do you really think that as humans we'll _EVER_ actually accomplish this? Even if we did have the means (and that's unlikely), I actually doubt that people would be willing to sacrifice they're own tax money that goes to programs that they need to feed people in other countrys. Now I'm not saying that's right, but it is true.
Second, the space program spends a few billion a year to explore and research space, the military spends a few HUNDRED billion a year to kill people (and research how to do it better). Now.. I'm not saying we shouldn't have a military, but this is also a fact. We're all killing each other right and left right now and you want to take money away from space to feed starving people?? Maybe we could just stop killing each other and free up the few hundred billion a year, maybe this is a better first step before feeding the hungry of the world.
Normally the shuttle lands in Florida and launches in Florida.
The other cost associated with Edwards is the sand - the runways are sand runways, they have to clean out the shuttle with a fine toothed comb. The original mission profile was to launch in Florida, land at Edwards, to keep everyone happy, but after STS1 they said screw that, this damn sand is too much trouble... now Edwards is just a contingency.
-everphilski-
Oh... One quick note. NASA is a bit strange with the pilot / copilot thing... It's rather like, Pilot=Copilot, Commander=Pilot .. Semantics, really.
They weren't just trying to fix ONE problem for two years. Seriously.
Can't you just put aside your cynical nature for ten freakin minutes and actually be excited about the fact that humans were just in space for two weeks in a vehicle we built? Come on!
What's WRONG with people these days?
--- witty signature
I have watched so many of these landings, and it still amazes me. I remember watching the first launch in grade school, and the first landing.
I was tuned into NASA to when Columbia launched and heard mission control talking about the foam impact on the lead wing. That whole mission I kept shaking my head at follow up reports that the damage was inconsequential. I got up just in time to watch Columbia break up that morning. It was a heart-rending thing to see happen live.
This morning was fascinating. NASA coverage on the web just absolutely rocks. Even with the visual on the shuttle the whole way down, I still have a hard time conceptualizing that nature of that descent, from 17K mph 220 miles altitude to wheels stopped on the ground in a hour.
Incredible. Flawless. Heroic.
Great work NASA, JPL, Discovery crew! Welcome home. I hope you fly again, soon.
-rcmiv
I'd say that the space program is much less of a "waste" of money than the things on which the general public spends its money on its own.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
Merely because you don't care about something doesn't automatically mean it isn't newsworthy. There were many things that they did up there, pretty much every day, that was very interesting to me. And there were some things that I didn't care about that I'm sure were very interesting to some other people.
I loved the coverage and always looked forward to more shuttle articles.
A man with a gun is called a citizen. A man without a gun is called a subject.
Satellites have been sent to space long before the shuttle. Heck, we even went to the moon and back many times. All without the space shuttle.
"You superiour intellect is no match for our puny weapons" - The Simpsons
I believe the shuttle is a waste of money. Thus far, there is little proven benefit to its trips up and the risks seem to greatly out weigh the gains. Is it important to venture into outer space? I have no clue. Is it important to maintain the fate of the nation? Absolutely! Are there billions of tax dollars spent on NASA projects that culminate in little to no tangible results and / or benefit? Yes! Do the math....
Yeah, it's been really rough since they instituted those new laws requiring everyone to read every article on Slashdot thoroughly. I used to just read through the titles of most articles and then just read the ones that looked interesting, but now I have to read each and every one, including the comments.
It's getting so I can barely get any work done.
Yeah, but you're just wrong. The pilot manually controls the decent of the shuttle, which is a decent about 7 times steeper than that of a commercial jet. And it was dark. That takes some guts.
Do some research, and get yourself a clue.
--- witty signature
They will need to work around the blackout dates however.
I have faith in Jesus that my toenails will be clipped. . .well, now they're clipped. Thank you Jesus. (See how this line of reasoning works?)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4134986.stm for those want a read, 'tho its only mentioned in passing.
according to Feynman the shuttle pilot does only 2 things:
1. pushes the button for which base to land at
2. lowers the landing gear
and they only do number 2 because they don't like to feel completely like passengers.
Neither point is accurate and somewhat condescending. Rather than going by somebody who claims to be an expert on everything, why don't you look at the source?
Start with NASA MISSION EVENTS SUMMARY and scroll down to "Deorbit" and "Entry" to see what the shuttle astronauts really do when the shuttle leaves orbit (a lot more than just press a button).
As to the landing gear control, this is a safety of flight issue and is discussed in SHUTTLE AVIONICS Design Constraints and Considerations in the "GNC" section. The decision to make the gear down command a manual operation has nothing to do with making the astronauts not "feel completely like passengers".
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Going along with your point, It will be all but impossible to feed everyone on Earth until you rid the earth of its most common (It Seems) element: Greed. The Earth already produces enough food to feed every man, woman, and child, but when it rots in the ships because governments don't want to give it away, it does (obviously) no good. In fact, the US produces so much extra grain that we could make enough ethanol to subsitute about 36 million barrels of oil each year!
So the next time you try to say: "Oh! All that money being wasted, and all those starving people!!" Realize, there no amount of money that will quench humanity's greed.
my $.02
Their survival rate has so far been 98%.
The commentator on BBC made an interesting observation. It's better at this point to scrap the shuttle and use the Russian Soyuz program to re-supply the ISS, and move men up and down. We need a few more shuttle flights to complete the work on the ISS, and then we can move to Soyuz. A 40 year space program works better than a 30 year old one does. Thank god the cold war is over, huh?
> 2. lowers the landing gear
This is manually controlled because once the landing gear is lowered, it cannot be retracted while in flight.
If there was some fault in the computer system that prematurely lowered the landing gear, during liftoff or while in orbit, the shuttle would be unable to re-enter the atmosphere.
An assumption means, I think, that she's not certain and is just winging it.
Also the fast progress which is made in a lot of areas is pretty risk free. You do not plummet down to a huge piece of rock from several hundreds kilometer high with as only break air resistance.
The only promissing technique which is being develloped (or actually mainly discussed) is a space elevator. Since that is a really controlled piece of equipment, it should make it a lot safer.
Then again, I do not want to live near it when it fails, if the "rope" comes down, it will certainly mow down the surrounding before settling down.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
I bet its a relief that they finally got something to go right. Can't really blame them for having trouble with a spread out budget and 40 year old technology.
For some reason I refuse to use either spell check or the spacebar properly.
What can we find over there we can't find down here? Room to expand. Lots of real estate that is completely devoid of terrorists. And lots of other things, once we run out of them down here or our demand increases to levels that "down here" cannot support anymore. There is a reason for animals not being found in space. Two, actually. Number one, we haven't really been looking hard enough. Number two, evolution on earth arrived at sentience before it arrived at natural spaceworthiness.
Why does the foam on the external tank need to be there? Or more to the point, can`t they use a lighter material that won`t cause any damage even if it falls off? Or was the last shuttle mission just a freak accident similiar to the Challenger I wonder?
With the state of the world, it's immoral to *not* go into space.
Or is there going to be a better solution for increasing the planet's finite resources that I just don't see?
Sadly, there will always be starving people. My very loose 'proof' of that is the fact that we can, right now, solve pretty much all hunger and most disease problems around the planet, but we don't. The way already exists, if we have the will to travel along it.
The fact that we prefer instead to start or fight wars, to spend vast sums on personal entertainment and to do other frivolous things indicates to me that solving other people's issues is just not important to Humans.
By expanding outwards, we create wealth by making use of new resources unavailable to us now. It doesn't work so well here on Earth, as we've already covered the planet quite thoroughly, and when we expand our territory, we do it at someone else's expense.
The move to space is not only justifiable and morally defensible, it makes economic sense.
We have to do it, and we have to do it now.
As long as you don't look too closely you can make yourself believe the program runs fairly well. But once you beef up the testing and monitoring, suddenly you find the place is full of problems and you wonder how it ever could fly.
Things were pretty bad before the Challenger. Then they improved drastically. After Columbia they improved drastically again. Right now nobody feels safe with this machine anymore. With reason, but I think it's very much safer than it used to be.
Your other problem is Feynman has been dead since 1988. So anything he said is likely to be out of date. For example:It's possible they're still using that computer system, but there's a good chance they've progressed.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
The computerized autopilot handles all of those banking manuevers. A human pilot, generally the commander (not the "shuttle pilot") then takes the flight controls about 3-4 minutes from touchdown and manually flies the craft from the last portion of the descent to the airport, around a semicircular base leg (in today's landing it was a right-base) of the landing pattern and straight on down final thru the flare and touchdown.
The "shuttle pilot" handles the maneuvering of the craft while in orbit, and is a "co-pilot" during takeoff and landing where the "commander" is the actual pilot.
In today's landing, Eileen personally handled the landing.
Huh? Discovery? I thought it was, "The EAGLE has landed"...
Why colonize space? To ensure the survival of our DNA. Having the entire expression of the human genome on one planet, that is susceptible to meteors, possible nuclear devastation, ice-age or warming events, etc., is not a smart idea in the long run. You obviously aren't even thinking hundreds or thousands of years in the future.
Creating a self-sufficient colony on Mars is certainly possible, if you were familiar with the research that would be obvious. Especially with long term (thousands plus) years of terraforming.
Do you think that humans will never have to start looking at other options besides living on the Earth? Are you a rational person? As technology advances and the population grows, space colonization will no doubt be entirely feasible.
Are you so short-sighted that you can't see the inevitable future? Purely through gene modification and eventual transhuman experimentation we could have Mars-ready "humans" ready to deal with the conditions.
Over thousands of years, space colonization will be a massive endeavor. Spending a paltry amount of billions getting started on the program is nothing.
The foam that destroyed Columbia was BX-250, which used CFC-11 as a blowing agent. Columbia used Lightweight External Tank 93, an older model.
On tanks constructed after ET-93, NASA replaced BX-250 with BX-265, which used HCFC 141b as a blowing agent. BX-265 is not without its problems, however, and NASA is working on replacement formulae.
mod parent up
How is this flamebait and yet a reply with massive hyperbole about how a shuttle is vital to world survival is not?
The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory.
Cost of the apollo mission to get to the moon somewhere around $25 billion (wikipedia so not definate figure) Cost of running the shuttle somewhere around $3 billion a year http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/budget/fy96/hsf_3.ht ml.
Even with inflation I think it is a fact the shuttle is a monumental waste of money.
This does not mean that space exploration as a whole is not without merit. Just that the current method of getting into (and out of) orbit is not very efficient. If we are to find new resources that seem to be the justification from many posters we need a new scaleable launch platform.
PS Mod down first mention of space elevator!
The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory.
Living in Austin, TX, we once found out that a night landing would take the orbiter overhead, and saw the most amazing sci-fi movie special effect of its plasma trail, followed several minutes later by a faint double-boom.
We went in to watch the landing, and the plasma trail was still boiling away overhead (faintly) when it touched down at the Cape just NINE MINUTES LATER.
Then we realized just how blazing fast this thing drops in for a "landing", since it traveled 1000 miles in under 10 minutes, and made a perfect landing. Rocket scientists deserve their title.
Let me preface my later remarks by saying, "Great job crew! Congratulations and welcome home!"
Please tell me why the future of the space program is uncertain? I it because 14 people died in 113 flights? More people died building bridges and monuments in this country. That hasn't stopped us from building them. In fact the idea of NOT bulding brides or monument would have likely been scoffed at. The space program, not unlike our bridges, are a natural extension of our efficiency and quest for resources. It would be a mistake to question our mission to expand beyond our known boudaries.
I understand safety is a grave concern. But let's not second guess ourselves. We are a technologically advanced culture that advances more than a "small leap" by learning from our mistakes and our successes. Let's not forget the 1980's...which was our most prolific period of manned space flights. I welcome a return to those times.
Thank you NASA for continuing to go where our collective consciousness fears to tread.
I believe digitalgroove is a waste of space. Thus far, there is little proven benefit to its being and the risks seem to greatly out weigh the gains. Is it important for digitalgroove to exist? I have no clue. Is it important to maintain the fate of digitalgroove? Absolutely! Are there billions of french fries spent on digitalgroove that culminate in little to no tangible results and / or benefit? Yes! Do the math....
Karnal
Am I the only one who finds it really sad that this is the most exciting science news in the media these days? Watching a guy in a space suit pull out a piece of paper from between two tiles does not need to be on CNN for LIVE coverage. News worthy science stories should capture the imagination.
Landing on the moon = cool,
Finding life at the bottom of the ocean = cool
Finding over a dozen new planets past Pluto = cool
Rolling around on Mars = cool
Discovering big bang/dark matter/universe expansion = cool
They are cool because they alter our understanding of the universe.
Touching up the shuttle in orbit while talking to the president of Japan = totally boring
Maintenance trips to the space station = boring
Looking at panoramic views of Earth from space for the 5 zillionth time = super boring
Doesn't mainstream media have anything better to report on in the science world? Is the problem with the reporting or the slow progression of scientific discoveries?
What is cynical about stating the facts? We have spent 6.6 billion dollars on the Shuttle program since it's last flight (3.2 Billion per year at 3 years since the last successful flight). Until another shuttle is launched, you have to attribute that entire cost to the single flight. It's simple math. If you take offense to it, yell at NASA or the person who invented math, not me. I just stated the facts. I brough up what problems they were fixing or at what cost or if they did them successfully or not. I simply stated that this flight has a totla overhead of 6.6 Billion until a time that another shuttle flys to divide that expenditure between more flights. It doesn't look like that is going to happen anytime soon as the program is again grounded.
See various FAQs; "wb" is "welcome back", "ty" is "thank you".
I guess this is off topic in one sense but not in that it /. post. But I'm curious how the editors
applies to this
see something like 'shuttle has landed' as something that
belongs? I mean come on..
CNN/FOX/MSNBC/CBS/ABC/NBC/BBC/SKY/AP/ and any other tv/wire
service had this the moment it happened. Perhaps if there
was some value added to the post it would be relevant but I
just don't get it when the editors put up stories that are
simply statements of the obvious from an extremely well
reported event.
I was all on board the idea of giving up on the OSP and getting a simple capsule, but then I saw something.
The inside of the shuttle is -big-. Capsules are small. We can stuff 7 people in a shuttle and they have more than enough room to hang out in. The cargo bay is big and roomy. There's plenty of stuff in there.
So, I'm going to come out and say that yes the shuttle is a hideously complicated system, aging technology, but we should keep in mind that we have a working orbital space plane.
Instead of building a cramped little capsule, why not design a newer shuttle that:
a) can be configured for lunar orbital missions
b) rides on top of a booster, rather than its side
c) has its own onboard jet engines (avoid the need for deadstick landings)
d) has a more reliable thermal protection system than the shuttle.
e) works to address designed in defects of the shuttle.
There's a huge amount of design knowledge around the shuttle, and just pitching it for a capsule seems like a waste.
This is my sig.
The 3.2 billion number is the actual NASA budget number for the space shuttle program alone for one year. These actual numbers and budgetary constraints can be found at NASA's own site or at the US Congress's site. Presumably you can start getting that number per mission lowered as you start launching more shuttles. The total budget numbers do not change even though the number of launches increase. Therefore each mission would carry less and less of the overhead over time. Right now however, this one mission carries the entire overhead for three years of the shuttle budget, which accounts for a total of 6.6 billion in expenditures. Moon, mars and other mission are paid for under other budget line items. That is not being cynical at all. It is being factual and the facts state this mission has cost 6.6 billion dollars. Perhaps if we can squeeze one more mission in before the end of the year, that number would be cut in half to 3.3 billion dollars. Once we move into next year, we have to add another 3.2 billion to the total and again divide by the total number of missions, but hopefully the nuumber of mission will increase and lower that per mission burden substantially. It would be nice to see it under 1 billion per mission at the least.
I might have been excited about that 40 years ago.
36 years ago we had men on the Moon. Now we can barely get into orbit, and when we do, all we think about is getting back down again.
Why can't we go back to the Moon? Have NASA forgotten all the technology they used? Did someone burn all the manuals and steal the spaceships?
We should be on Pluto by now.
More then that, if the landing gear were to be deployed too early during descent, the shuttle would be lost. Think much bigger opening then that which caused the loss of Columbia. I read somewhere that the astronauts requested in the beginning of the program that the landing gear be deployed manually for that very reason.
I believe tofu is a waste of money. Thus far, there is little proven benefit to its bland taste and the risks seem to greatly outweigh the gains. Is it important to venture into that aisle in the supermarket? I have no clue. Is it important to maintain the fate of the nation? Absolutely! Are there billions of tax dollars spent on tofu projects that culminate in little to no tangible results and / or benefit? Yes! Do the math...
Slashdot.. Land of nerds, trolls, and FlameBait..
Looking at the facts, it seems that only one shuttle mission has ever landed manually, the rest have been computer controlled. The pilot just launches the landing gear.
With all those variables and the precision and calculations required, you'd be mad to leave up to human control.
because travel between two points on earth's surface is something practical. Almost everyone needs to get form Point A to Point B for some reason, and in many cases flight speeds make such travel more economical. (Is it financially better to pay $500 for a four hour plane trip between LA and NY, or to drive that distance?)
Travel between earth's surface and the moon, for example, is less a matter of pragmatic considertation, and more one of scientific interest.
If rockets were the only way to travel between points of practical interest, they would have "won."
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Troll. That money isn't "wasted", it goes to pay thousands of the US's high tech worker salaries. It does put bread on people's tables and pay their mortgages. Admittedly, it is government/socialism, but they don't burn dollar bills to fuel the Shuttle. That money goes to people, it doesn't disappear.
If you want to point to wasted money that could go to feeding the hungry, how about people that buy organic food for their pets, or medical care for their pets, or the billions that get spent on makeup and bubblegum? I have a friend that spent $5000 on a friggin' cat, if you want waste. To point to one of America's premier technology development and engineering efforts as waste is to see the tree but not the forest. The Department of Defense wastes more money in clerical errors and paper supplies than NASA's whole budget.
Anyway, there is no place in the US Constitution that says the govt is supposed to feed the world. Harsh, but true. You want to eliminate hunger, go teach the starving how to start a revolution and how to farm sustainably. Money/free food doesn't help permanently.
Josh
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
During the Pope-death-athon everyone was actually waiting for the guy to die. This round of constant monitoring gave me more of a NASCAR feel, where nobody wants a crash but everybody wants to be watching if one occurs. It's nice that there was no crash. I'm sure somewhere the shuttle pit crew is spraying champagne all over the place while wearing lab coats and doing backflips.
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
If there was some fault in the computer system that accidently turned on half of the RCS engines on take-off, flipping the shuttle around, it would disintegrate under the pressure. Yet it is still done automatically. The landing gear thing is to satisfy the ego of the pilots. The shuttle should be capable of flying entirely unmanned.
If it doesn't make a "purty pichur", John Q. Sixpack isn't interested. If John Q. Sixpack isn't interested, then neither is the mainstream media that caters to John Q. Sixpack.
Regards;
....courtesy of the American Public School System. :P
Regards;
The local homeless shelters here have bathing facilities, and with the money they panhandle in a day they can buy goodwill clothes (about $.38 an item). For as many of them I see buying cases of beer don't try to convince me they can't afford it.
I can remember being excited about a shuttle launch in 1981. I was a young energetic grad, fresh out of an aerospace engineering program, and the shuttle was a foundation technology that was going to pave the way for our industry to make a space station just another stop on the airline schedules.
It's 24 years later, and about all the shuttle has done is soak up all the funds for space exploration over that time, preventing any real advances in the field. After all that time, now it's gone on a flight that seems to be even more 'experimental' than the first one was.
I like to compare the shuttle program to it's predecessors. As a child, I watched the space program go from 'no functional capacity' to 'walking on the moon' in less than a decade. It was an exciting time to grow up with an interest in science and exploration. In the 3 decades since then, we watched the program go from 'walking on the moon' to 'cant go to orbit without a lifeboat and once again all grounded'.
Please remind me one more time, just what is exciting about this ?
I gotta drop a comment here, if only to make a weak attempt at balancing all the twelve year olds telling you to get back in the kitchen.
Then again, I'm a tech and I can still poach a decent chicken dish, so that doesn't really say much, now does it?
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
OK, let's look at the facts, which you clearly didn't do, or did you just forget to put your references in? This is from the landing 101 page at NASA's web site.
Which facts were you referring to?
The fact is, shuttle pilots train for years and do hundreds of landing approach practice runs, and it's pretty sad when slashdotters, who have no idea and who think that cynicism is the same thing as sophistication, post bullshit like you just did.
Perhaps it makes you feel better to imagine that, but for a random twist of fate, it could have been you pressing that landing gear button. Well, it wasn't and you couldn't. Accept it, and move on.
Lots of things that are trivial to do on Earth are quite difficult to do in space. NASA sometimes belabors every baby step because those steps can be really hard, AND because it took huge amounts of talent, energy and cash to get up there just so you can DO those things.
I think another reason is because they do all these drawn out, precisely choreographed procedures in space. That gives the mission commentators on the ground a lot of dead air to fill.
RETURN without GOSUB in line 1050
Maybe a pilot can explain it better than I can, but the difference is somewhat like this: a yoke has two different types of motion: you can rotate it like a steering wheel, and you can push/pull it. A stick is like the video game joysticks we all know and love. The shuttle is flown with the latter when under human control (although it's still connected via a digital fly-by-wire system).
If you look at pictures of the shuttle cockpit, you can clearly see a stick there. I suggest comparing the cockpit interiors of Boeing and Airbus (except the A300) commercial jets on airliners.net for an illustration of the differences.
From the great JSR monthly report.
http://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html
Shuttle and Station
-------------------
The Shuttle has completed its return-to-flight mission, but continuing problems with debris marred the otherwise successful flight.
Discovery was launched at 1439:00 UTC on Jul 26, reaching a 54 x 229 km orbit at 1447 UTC. The OMS-2 burn at 1517 UTC raised the perigee out of
the atmosphere, with a 155 x 230 km orbit. NC-1 and NC-2 burns resulted in 226 x 285 km and 270 x 287 km orbits, as the Shuttle slowly matched
altitude and speed with the Station in a 350 x 356 km x 51.6 deg orbit. Meanwhile, external tank ET-121 fell back into the Pacific with reentry
at around 1550 UTC.
Spectacular camera views from the External Tank showed minor tile damage during ascent, and the loss of a half-meter piece of foam from the ET at
the time of SRB separation. Although the foam did not hit Discovery, the failure to stop large foam loss (a 15-cm piece was also lost from near
the bipod ramp) will have to be investigated and fixed before Atlantis can fly the next mission.
On Jul 19 the Station crew flew Soyuz TMA-6 from the Pirs docking port, undocking at 1038 UTC, and redocked with the Zarya docking port at 1108 UTC.
On Jul 28 at 1118 UTC Discovery docked at the Space Station. Hatch opening was at 1250 UTC. The first spacewalk was carried out on Jul 30
and saw tile repair tests in the payload bay, and installation of a mounting bracket for the ESP-2 stores platform on the Station's Quest module.
The second spacewalk on Aug 1 saw replacement of the Station's CMG-1 gyro. The third spacewalk on Aug 3 saw installation of the ESP-2 platform,
and the removal of two protruding pieces of tile gap-filler material from the Shuttle's heat shield.
Discovery undocked from Station at 0724 UTC on Aug 6 and landed safely on Runway 22 at Edwards Air Force Base at 1211 UTC on Aug 9.
Animoog.org
You obviously weren't in Southern California this morning at 5:07 am Pacific time... I thought it was an earthquake 'cause the house kept shaking for five seconds after the boom hit.
I am Asian. I was in the passenger seat of a car driven by a female friend of mine. We're waiting for this guy to pull out of a parking spot and he's being really slow and tardish. I make the crack, "Damn, is it a chick driving that thing?" He pulls out and it's a man. I remark, "Hmmm. No, a guy." My friend then asks, "Is he Asian?"
Touche, Patricia.
We were lost. None of us knew where we were. And then Harry began feelin' around on all the trees. And then he says, "Hey guys, I got it! We on Pluto!" And we said, "Harry, how can you tell?" He said, "From the bark you dummies! (laughs) From the bark!!! (laughs)
*cue the dancing alien to finish the obscure reference*
UNIX: A computer user is defined as a programmer. WINDOWS: A computer user is defined as a consumer.
Everyone seems to have taken offense to me pointing out how much the shuttle program has spent since it's last mission and not pointed out that I multiplied the numbers incorrectly. It is actually 9.6 Billion, not 6.6 Billion. 3.2 per year times 3 years is 9.6 not 6.6. oops. (Blame it on that stupid MS calculator I was using ;)
Last time, I was misled:
washingtonpost.com
Columbia Streaks Toward Florida Landing
By Marcia Dunn
AP Aerospace Writer
Saturday, February 1, 2003; 8:28 AM
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - With security tighter than usual, space shuttle Columbia streaked toward a Florida touchdown Saturday to end a successful 16-day scientific research mission that included the first Israeli astronaut.
The early morning fog burned off as the sun rose, and Mission Control gave the seven astronauts the go-ahead to come home on time. "I guess you've been wondering, but you are 'go' for the deorbit burn," Mission Control radioed at practically the last minute.
Ilan Ramon, a colnel in Israel's air force and former figher pilot, became the first man from his country to fly in space, and his presence resulted in an increase in security, not only for Columbia's Jan. 16 launch, but also for its landing. Space agency officials feared his presence might make the shuttle more of a terrorist target.
"We've taken all reasonable measures, and all of our landings so far since 9-11 have gone perfectly," said Lt. Col. Michael Rein, an Air Force spokesman.
Columbia's crew - Ramon and six Americans - completed all of their 80-plus experiments in orbit. They studied ant, bee, and spider behavior in weightlessness as well as changes in flames and flower scents, and took measurements of atmospheric dust with a pair of Israeli cameras.
The 13 lab rats on board - part of a brain and heart study - had to face the guillotine following the flight, so researchers could see up-close the effects of so much time in weightlessness. The insects and other animals had a brighter, longer future: the student experimenters were going to get them back and many of the youngsters planned to keep them, almost like pets.
All of the scientific objectives were accomplished during the round-the clock laboratory mission, and some of the work may be continued abourd the international space station, researchers said. The only problem of note was a pair of malfunctioning dehumidifiers, which temporarily raised temperatures inside the laboratory to the low 80s, 10 degrees higher than desired.
Some of Columbia's crew members didn't want their time in space to end.
"Do we really have to come back?" astronaut David Brown jokingly asked Mission Control before the ride home.
NASA's next shuttle flight, a space station construction mission, is scheduled for March. The next time Columbia flies will be in November, when it carries into orbit educator-astronaut Barbara Morgan, who was the backup for Challenger crew member Christa McAuliffe in 1986.
[End of the article]
Contact was lost at 9:00AM, 32 minutes after the Washington Post published this.
The reference to Challenger at the end is just creepy.
Lastly, as far as I'm concerned you can stay up there as long as you want David - RIP.
Not all the runways at Edwards are sand. The runway the shuttle landed on is 15,000 feet of nice solid concrete. There is sand blown onto the runway, but it's nowhere near as bad as landing on an actual dry lakebed. You are correct that landing on a dry lakebed is not great for the shuttle. STS-3 landed on desert at White Sands Missile Range and they haven't done it since because of the damage it caused.
Scrap the shuttle. Move the money to private industry (ala Burt Ruttan, Scaled Composites, etc.) In 5 years, we'll all be in space just like the airline industry made air travel fast, safe, and affordable!
Soyuz is great for getting people up there and some supplies. Progress can cram a bunch more supplies on it, but for some things, like ACTUAL ISS HARDWARE, you cannot fit into a Progress of Soyuz module. Sorry to say it, but the shuttle does not have a replacement at the moment. Not only that, there is no current way to take things back. For instance, they had several radios that were just too expensive to toss into a Progress to get burned up on reentry.
A lot of the european countries are really worried that we'll retire the shuttle leaving billions of euros of ISS hardware firmly planted on the Earth.
The primary reason the Soyuz works so well is because it has one single job, bring 3 cosmonauts to space and back. That is *all* it does. The shuttle had an unrealistic number of expectations placed on it. It is capable of a lot of things although may of the original design intents are now too dangerous to risk life for. That's things like orbit very large intelligence satellites, etc.
Another reason the BBC commentator's comments are ignorant are based on the fact that until very recently, NASA was unable to pay for Soyuz and the Russians didn't have the cash to send more than the minimum. NASA couldn't pay for Soyuz due to a law passed that banned NASA for paying for any space related hardware to persuade Russia to stop helping Iran on it's nuclear weapons program.
I think that's a great quote that I'd like to save, but I can't find it anywhere on the web... can you find a citation for me?
the BBC says the pilot made a perfect landing. these guys do a lot of stuff, but they don't land the shuttle.
From about Mach 1, the Shuttle Commander Elieen Collins did a manual landing. This means she manually did a 160 degree turn to align with the runway while descending 20 times faster than a commercial airliner. The Shuttle is a glider at this point with no go-around capabilities. So Commander Collins basically had one shot at landing something similar to a flying brick, and she did so flawlessly. If that isn't a landing then nothing is.
..I can flip the coin and present it in terms that the other side urges for.
I hereby mandate that every store owner must sell firearms. After all, we don't care if you're morally opposed to selling them - we have a right to bear them granted by the second amendment. Who are you to decide that your morality overrules my right to bear firearms? Who are you to decide that following your conscience is more important than fulfilling my desires?
If a pharmacist is morally opposed to being a conduit for chemical abortions, who are you to decide his morality is inferior to yours and compell him to act against his conscience?
SYS 64738
I can think of a great number of health issues (physical and psychological) that would hinder and stop you from holding a permanent job. I thank my lucky stars everyday that I can actually hold a job. You only need a bit bad luck for you to end up with brain damage which will diminish your possibility to work and even have friends. It could be as simple as not being able to focus for more than 5 minutes on a task or having very little ability for recolection.
When I lived in the US I could never understand how heartless people were. We live in a community. We meant to help each other.. yet more momey was spent on arms to create more destruction and despair than helping people who need help. They would always point to the 10% who were genuinely taking advantage of people's good nature to not help the rest. It was almost a way to not acknowledge how fragile we are as human beings. Just think what would take for you to end up asking for money in the street.
People would come and visit me from overseas and after a few shell shocked visitors, I had to come up with a bit of an orientation talk to help my friends come to terms with the poverty and the misery they saw in the richest country in the world. I didn't live in any little state, I lived in the state that has the highest gpd in the country.
I actually enjoyed working the in US and I was hoping to stay long enough to work at NASA but in the end this alpha male attitude made me think..'Do I want my children to grow up here'.
I'm always happy to pay taxes if they go towards helping people, science, arts and a DEFENCE force. I have control of the government.. private companies not a chance. So all you alpha males remember that not everbody is as strong, clever, resilient as you. The weaker members need help and the community should encourage the average to become strive for better things rather than pushing them down.
BTW: Great landing!!
Cheers A.
Comic-book-guy at his computer:
Oh, Captain Janeway. Lace: The Final Brassiere. Oh hurry up, I'm a busy man. Ugh, this high-speed modem is intolerably slow...
Of course mistakes can't be avoided.Lesson learned (I hope) is: the KISS principle is the first principle in space travel.
Dyslexics have more fnu.
The ISS is a huge waste though.
The ISS is the ONLY way that the astronauts aboard the shuttle would have been able to survive any length of time while waiting for a possible rescue if the shuttle had indeed been damaged enough to make reentry unsafe.
Sooner or later there will be hotels, transit points and repair stations in orbit. The ISS is a precursor to that. Take a look at the facts: The fact that the ISS was there enabled NASA to get complete 360 images of the shuttle's surface by doing a roll in fornt of it. The ISS helped the repair of the tile gap fillers by providing a vantage point to see what the astronauts were doing.
Dennis Tito and Mark Shuttleworth have been simply the two first paying tourists in space at the ISS hotel. I guarantee you that if there weren't such a load of bad noise about the shuttle that there would be more multi-millionaires willing to go up.
Apart from all that, the ISS is the only way that science can learn how humans react to very long stays in zero gravity. This is highly important to future travels in the solar system.
The ISS is by no means a waste.
It isn't friction. It's called "Ram Pressure".
Basically a meteor (or space shuttle) compresses the air in front of it, which causes it to get extremely hot (think bicycle pump). The space shuttle tiles are not as strong as you might think. The heat comes from the compressed super-hot air in front of the object. This is what causes the surface of a meteor to melt.
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
Please, enroll in an accounting course at your local community college so you won't be spewing this non-sensical bullshit on /. anymore.
the 20 times faster figure is a missprint if the number are anything to go by (according to BBC: shuttle: 200mph, airliner: 20 mph????), twice the landing speed of a commercial airliner seems to be right
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
More like dropping a pebble and praying to god. I wonder waht the discussion was like:
"Houston There's a lot of vibrations and some stuff falling out, maybe a little coolant leaking... are you sure this thing is ok?"
"Copy Discovery thats normal... stuff falls off that hoopty all the time"
"Ok houston, that encouraging.. this is one ROUGH ride."
"Discovery, are you holding the oh shit straps we installed?"
"Houston, you guys suck you know that?"
Armstrong had rehearsed a slightly different statement that he fumbled on the moon. What he intended to say was "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." That actually makes some sense. What he actually said, if you think about it, don't make much sense... but I suppose it has that profound aura that made the statement it so historical.
I lived in SoCal all my life and this is the first landing that scared the shit out of me. Is there a reason why this landing was so much louder then the others?
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
Scrap the shuttle. Move the money to private industry (ala Burt Ruttan, Scaled Composites, etc.) In 5 years, we'll all be in space just like the airline industry made air travel fast, safe, and affordable!
"We would be better off with one outside of LEO or between the earth and the moon"
Yeah... we could call it "Cancer Station". LEO is safe thanks to the Earth's magnetic field. For short durations (like Apollo) you are basically hoping the Sun doesn't develop a bad case of gas and irradiate your ass. Also they try and schedule around the Sun's flare cycle.
Interplanetary space is not a good place for humans for long durations. Back in the Apollo days when passing the Van Allen belts, one experiment was for astronauts to close their eyes for a period of time and call out when they saw spots or streaks. These flashes and streaks were caused by high energy particles blowing through their retinas. If that doesn't give you the heebie-jeebies, you're nuts.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
REAL pilots can land WITHOUT flaps. .... Actually they DID that in the move "Space Cowboys")
(wonder if any jet jock ever tried to slip a 747?
How about the SPACE SHUTTLE?
Ah, you're right the PILOT does those two things. The PILOT is actually the CO-PILOT.
The COMMANDER is the person that does the flying after re-entry and lands the beast.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
"descending 20 times faster" probably refers to descent rate, not airspeed.
But... but... the Department of War... err Defence is keeping us safe from the terrrrrists! If you allow clerical errors to stop us from dumping billions into an invasion of a soverign nation, dang it, I mean a "liberation" of a soverign nation, then the terrrrrists have already won!
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
Room is not about the mathematic definition of space. For lifeforms, it's about resources and shelter. Outside our planet, there are no resources nor shelter we haven't taken with us from the earth. And taking one kg of resources up there, costs millions kg of resources on earth. Using it down here, is far more efficient. About the shelter thing: in space there is no protecting atmosphere. There is no warmth: it's far too hot or far too cold. There's fierce radiation, meteors etc.
As i said, there are giant spaces down here on earth, with lots of resources, and much more shelter than in space. The waters. We have all the technology to colonize them, yet we don't do it. A few people really live on the surface of the sea, but they are more and more replaced by robots. Most of the people just travel over the water, and they always want to return one day to the shore. (i am a sailor, believe me)
So, before you are so sure about mankind conquering space, explain me why we don't take that far more easy to colonize room down here.
Trust me, I work for the government.
~and the first from his country to die in space~ RIP Colombia Crew. You took the walk amoung the stars most of us wish we could, now they are yours to walk through for eterity. Ilan Ramon, a colonel in Israel's air force and former figher pilot, became the first man from his country to fly in space
~~"Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." ~~Dennis Miller
The big runway I see is 04. Is the other end of it 22? I can't make it out because of all the tire marks. I'm a bit uninformed as to how they name runways.
I guess it could be runway 22 the other way as the shuttle had to make a greater than 180 degree turn
Scrap the shuttle. Move the money to private industry (ala Burt Ruttan, Scaled Composites, etc.)
Who do you think builds the shuttle and stack components? Hint: It's not NASA; it's Rockwell, Morton Thiokol, Pratt & Whitney, etc. NASA puts out an RFP for a project, selects one of the resulting designs and pays the private contractor(s) to build it. If you just dump the money on private industry, all you'll get is rich CEOs partying in the Bahamas.
In 5 years, we'll all be in space just like the airline industry made air travel fast, safe, and affordable!
Wonderful. Let's discuss the bankruptcy record and past and recent government bailouts of the airline industry. Then there's United Airlines which just dumped its pension obligations on the American taxpayers while its CEO got $1.1 million. That's a great model to follow.
I think that if they need to worry about missing tiles or a little insulation hanging off the ship, then the design is broken.
I mean, come on, those ships in Star Wars take off and land at will.
I find it interesting that several people have replied to my message commenting on how "we" should have safe, cheap, reliable, common space travel by now.
I have to wonder why all these people who are such experts on spaceflight are posting on Slashdot instead of working at NASA.
Second, it's folly to assume that because the overall pace of technological advancement is fast, a particular field should be fast. Now, maybe we should be making faster gains in spaceflight. Unlike everyone else here, I'm no expert, and won't make a claim one way or the other. But I do know that drawing specific conclusions from a general trend is rarely a good idea. "Past performance is not a guarantee of future returns", as they say in the investment business.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
"Believe it or not, some people are interested in this. I've had NASA TV playing on my computer for the past two days."
Well, sure. If you want continous coverage of spaceflight activity, you tune in the NASA channel. That makes sense. My complaint is about the mainstream media and web media, both of which have featured non-stop commentary on every little thing, with no insight as to what is important and what isn't, and with plenty of "lay experts" giving their two bits. That isn't news.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
"Lots of things that are trivial to do on Earth are quite difficult to do in space. NASA sometimes belabors every baby step..."
:-)
As I said, my comments were not directed at NASA. Pay attention.
As you point out, NASA has good reasons for what they do. Even the constant radio chatter about what people are doing is by design. Most times, the Mission Controllers cannot see what is going on, so they need that commentary to keep the "picture" in their minds accurate. It also establishes a record of what is going on, in case something bad happens and they need to look back. It also allows others to double-check what is going on, and possibly stop a problem before it stops. I'm not complaining about that.
I'm complaining about the media obsession with STS-114. If it wasn't for the fact that the last STS mission ended in a disaster, the mainstream media wouldn't give this mission two seconds of attention.
Blech.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
You may be thinking of the Soviet Buran, which on most test flights and its only orbital flight was landed by computer.
Me (Blog)
That's doubtful considering K&R was written in 1978, and this was the first public spec of the language. ANSI C didn't even come along until the 80's.
The initial developement of C wasn't even done until 1973, so unless you were at Bell Labs with Thompson and Ritchie in 1969, I think you're just making shit up.
You're either really senile, or must've fallen very far in life to go from the forefront of Computer Science in the 1970's to trolling on Slashdot.
Dollar inflation since Apollo has been HUGE. But yes, the shuttle is very inefficient; it exists largely for political reasons.
Me (Blog)
(Peter, Joe Swanson, Quagmire, and Cleveland are sitting in a boat, at a table)
Peter: Okay, imagine none of you were married. If you could have any woman in the world, who would it be?
Joe: I'd pick Muriel Hemmingway.
(others moan in disagreement)
Joe: No, she's beautiful in a classical way.
Quagmire: Yeah, but you could cut a roast on her face!
Cleveland: I'd pick Margaret Thatcher.
(others moan in disagreement again)
Cleveland: Oh, so no one finds power sexy. Not one of you finds power sexy?
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
This is runway 22... Need proof? just scroll east and continue out untill the runway ends (which is about the middle of the lakebed), and you'll see a 22 inside a circle at the end of it.
...if the Shuttle needed to be parallel parked.
Well, originally the rationalization was that the shuttle could be used to fix satellites in space (for example Hubble) or even bring them back to earth for repair, which I seem to remember they did once in the early launches.
However, two things have happened since then - first, the shuttle's mission got hijacked to be a garbage truck and greyhound bus for the ISS. The other was that many of the other underlying assumptions were just wrong - the cost per flight was hugely over-optimistic - it is cheaper to replace Hubble with a "fixed" copy than to go up and attempt to repair it... (but not as much of a challenge for the engineers)
Another issue early on was that the shuttle was determined to be incapable of getting high enough in space to service most satellites.
And the American People (at least the media) are not prepared to accept the idea that each mission has a 1:40 chance of killing everyone on board. The notion now that some sort of "escape hatch" needs to be built should be the final chapter in shutting down this "designed by committee" failure. But as long as the people in Washington in both parties are spending like drunken sailors, look for more and more "fixes" to be made.
Final 2006 "Proof of Global Warming" US Hurricane Count -> 0
Wow I didn't even look out that far. Thanks for the info, now I know they're different numbers in different directions.
LOL! Beautiful. My favorite thing about the politics of the past few years is that our esteemed leader actually says "War on Terra" instead of "War on Terror". I think there is a good argument that he is an alien robot waging a conquest of the Earth.
The common defense is something actually written into our Constitution, I don't have a problem with it, per se. Invading soveriegn nations is a definite problem, though. Also, the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) is doing much more than NASA to enable cheap(er) space access. They have been doling out really targetted contracts to small businesses the past few years, rocket engines, new guidance systems, specialist microsatellites. They have a need for "responsive" spacelift that NASA has no interest in creating.
Josh
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
The runway is designated as Runway 4/22.
If you're on a heading of 220 degrees, it's Runway 22.
If you're on the reciprocal heading of 40 degrees, it's Runway 4.
After approaching from the west-southwest and making it's 196-degree turn, the shuttle was on a heading of 220 degrees and therefore landed on Runway 22.
Interesting off-topic bonus factoid: There is a story told at Edwards that the runway is *officially* 20,000 feet long. In reality, it's closer to 19,999 feet long. When it was being lengthened years ago, the Test Wing commander directed the last foot of concrete be diverted to his house to build a swimming pool. Somebody ratted him out to the Inspector General for fraud, waste, and abuse of government property and he was relieved of command. His old house is now used by the local chapter of the Civil Air Patrol for meetings; in the back yard is a swimming pool - filled in with concrete at the direction of the commander who replaced him.
HTH
What?
it's a "Rotational Hand Controller".
It was made by Thrustmaster, which later sold a version to the public that is usable with a home computer for flight simulation purposes.
Thrustmaster Millennium 3D Interceptor - Review
i am a soviet space shuttle
Does anybody else want to see the shuttle do a roll just before the landing? Just for fun?
I figure NASA would get more from that than anything else in the current political and administrative world : ) It worked for Boeing.
I'm talking about satellite repairs via the shuttle. Hubble and countless others have been under maintenance by the shuttle but it hardly gets media attention since it is mainly just hardware upkeep.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
I can't believe this got the comment of Troll! I think questioning our excitement for being in outer space when we're already in outer space is valid. The overly righteous subculture on Slashdot is getting stronger.
Is this serious?
What's WRONG with people these days?
Sensationalistic "NEWS" cycles, jealousy, cynicism and schadenfreude. I think that about covers it.
there needs to be a very basic change in the policy at NASA that allows them to DO WHATEVER IT TAKES to ensure the safety of their own vehicles that carry people on board-- in 1997, they were overridden by the EPA under the Clinton Administration, that changed the way that the insulating foam was applied to the external tank, which DIRECTLY led to the loss of Columbia-- that change caused the foam to become like huge sheets of peanut brittle-- NASA needs a policy change that allows them to tell other parts of the government like the EPA to in effect "go screw themselves" when they attempt to arbitrarily change operating procedures at NASA, such as under the Clinton Administration in 1997!