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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.
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.
-Mark
I love this page, and it seems to be an opportune moment.
Land the shuttle yourself you macho.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
1 million dollars! muhahahha!
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
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.
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.
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.
. . . 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
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.
Janeway got you hot and bothered?
You didn't really say that, did you? Really?
*Staggers off in shock*
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.
They will need to work around the blackout dates however.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4134986.stm for those want a read, 'tho its only mentioned in passing.
Um, didn't you get the sequence of events reversed?
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
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
Their survival rate has so far been 98%.
> 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.
Since when did CNN represent "international news"? I always thought it was "The Days of Our Lives" for the average American Joe and Janeway.
I'm surprised they used "subsonic" in a sentence.
DT
The problem is that back in 1998 or 1999, foam panel insulation was introduced to replace some sort of freon (or other CFC) spray foam insulation, because the manufacture of most CFCs is banned in most of the world.
The foam panels on Columbia took out critical tiles on the leading edge of the wing. Previous shuttle tile damage had been limited to less critical sections.
The Columbia disaster is a classic example of what happens when external events and political pressures interfere with the engineering process.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
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.
Why does the foam on the external tank need to be there? When you're dealing with liquid hydrogen and oxygen, you do want some insulation, for example to prevent the external tank from turning into the world's largest popsicle.
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.
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".
CNN is just chewing gums for the eyes. Unless you're stuck in a hotel room, why would you voluntarily watch CNN? They're the nipple pasties of the body that is international news. Well, you know what I mean.
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.
That is standard. The shuttle can land itself, but to date, no shuttle has been under computer control at the time of touchdown. Pilots want to fly, they are trained to fly, and I say we should let them fly.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
....courtesy of the American Public School System. :P
Regards;
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.
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
The article is worthwile because it gives us, the readers, a chance to comment on it, and have a more intelligent discussion than that which is available on any of the above media outlets.
There's your added value.
Justin
"Why would God give us a waist if we wasn't supposed to rest our pants on it?" - Rev. Roy McDaniels
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.
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.