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Shuttle Endeavour Blasts Off For Space Station
Gwmaw writes "The space shuttle Endeavour bolted off its seaside launch pad on Monday on a voyage to install the last two main pieces of the International Space Station. The 4:14 a.m. EST (0914 GMT) blastoff from the Kennedy Space Center shattered the predawn tranquility with a deafening roar and a brilliant tower of flames that momentarily turned the dark Florida sky as bright as day." HD video of launch attached.
First?
Best part was the sound... oh the glorious rumble.
My dog loved it too.
Paul's Steakhouse Rocks the block and Arby's sucks... you know why!
Which right there tells me we shouldn't be sending people out into space anymore. It is a colossal waste of money to send us weak ass little humans, who need protection for our weak bodies, plus food, water, a place to go to the toilet, etc, instead of robots. The robots are cheaper, take up less resources, can stay longer and thus get more work done, just better all around.
Until we figure out some new forms of propulsion it is just a waste of time and money to send us weak little humans. While the whole "Buck Rogers/ Star trek" idea is nice, with current means of transportation it is just too impractical, when the robots can do it better for cheaper. We just need to accept with current tech space is for the robots, who can take the multi-year trips necessary to get anywhere interesting and get any real work done. Humans in space was fine during the Cold War when we wanted an American standing there with a flag as an FU to the Russians, but that time is past folks. Time to let it go.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Those factories have been mothballed and the employees reassigned or laid off. There might be enough spare parts for an extra science mission Bush canceled a few years ago.
It was a glorious morning when my alarm beeped at 4:10am. I awoke, turned on the TV to the pre-set NASA channel, checked to make sure the launch was still 'a Go'. I then donned a bathrobe over my birthday suit, watched the last 10 seconds on TV until I heard "We have Liftoff" and stepped out on my back porch. I looked to the east and the tree line was shadowed in a orange glow that was beautiful during the pre-dawn hours. The sky was clear and the air was crisp and the sight of the flames was facinating even at 50 miles away. I watched at the shuttle began to head in a northward direction. It was around 6.5 minutes later that the sound waves rumbled through the still night air. It was more of a low rumble, but it was distinctly felt and heard. At aroun 7.5 mintues, between my screen porch, the trajectory and my poor vision I could no longer see the bright spec of light that was the shuttle that was now a couple hundred miles away. I stepped back inside watched NASA TV until about the 9.5 minute mark during the last separation, and knew our astronauts doing ok. I hung up the robe, climbed back into bed, turned off the TV and went back to sleep.
What a beautiful way to wake up in the pre-dawn hours. And to think, /sniffle that was the last manned night launch we'll see for quite some time. Oh how I wish everyon could have seen this first hand.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
I was watching on NasaTV and knew when to look. I didn't really expect much, if anything.
It was Awesome! At least as bright as Jupiter, and it rocketed (heehee) right past an airplane that was on the same line of sight. I saw from about six minutes after launch to cutoff, apparently at twice the height of the houses around mine.
Awesome - I saw a real spaceship launch. I DO believe!
On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough. Seth
I just had a random thought, would it be useful to just decommission shuttles in space, meaning just leave them up there, possibly integrate them into the ISS?
So, without the new Constellation Program, we're looking at what, fifteen years before the US has manned spaceflight capability again? Even if NASA spends time doing research for Mars, a lot of practical and institutional knowledge is going to be lost during this period. There was already going to be five years of depending on the Russians to get to the ISS, now if this is extended, we could be looking at ten years or more. I hate to say it, but this really looks like the death of US space exploration, not a refocusing as the Obama administration is trying to spin it.
http://www.watchinghistory.com/2009/11/future-of-space-exploration.html
That's weird. I could swear the shuttle performed a rather significant mission recently that did not involve going to the space station.
I have to confess, while watching the launch this morning I didn't really care about what's practical or needed. A night launch of the shuttle is the most impressive feat of human engineering I have ever witnessed. When I was a kid working on an aircraft carrier I thought that was pretty cool, and it is to some extent, but the shuttle is in a completely different league of awesome. Lighting up the night sky is not hyperbole. I live an hour drive from Kennedy and it looks like the sun is coming up when they fire the engines. Then, when the shuttle lifts from the pad, it gets even brighter. Which my head has a difficult time taking in. I'll be sad to see it go, even if it does make sense.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
The funny part, is the only reason the shuttle program exists is to visit the station, and the only reason the station exists is to have a place for the shuttle to go. Every other purpose had to be removed to save money in budget crunches. So now that the shuttles are going away, the "almost finished" station will be deorbited in 3... 2... 1...
It's kind of the spacecraft equivalent of "dig a hole and fill it back in, repeat". No one makes money off a built station that has been budget crunched to the point that it does nothing. But you can make lots of money by building a station.
Now that the station on longer has to be in a shuttle-accessible orbit, could we not fit it with a nifty little ion engine and slowly boost it to a higher altitude?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I was up taking care of my infant daughter, looking out my sliding glass windows I could see it like a blue diamond in the sky rising.
Totally amazing.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
I saw all the shuttle launches before the Challenger tragedy (we moved back to Illinois prior to that), and indeed they were spectacular. I was surprised that I could see the night launch even when visiting my mom's house in Tampa.
However, the most spectacular technological sight I've seen is an SR-71 taking off. It may be that I was a lot closer; the closest I ever was to a shuttle launch was maybe five or so miles.
The shuttle talkes off gracefully, gaining speed as it rises. The SR-71, otoh, builds speed quickly going down the runway, and a half mile away it's as loud as the shuttle from 5-10 miles. It taxis FAST, does a wheelie, and about three seconds later it's gone straight up and disappears. It looks like a bottle rocket taking off.
They had nine of them at Beale when I was stationed there. Google Maps satellite view shows two of them still there (or did last time I looked).
Of course, the cold war was still going on then and we were always a half hour away from Armageddon. There were literally more B-52s there than I could count, all loaded with thermoneuclear bombs. That plane, BTW, is the scariest looking machine I ever saw, impressive in its own way. Both outdid anything science fiction movie special effects guys at the time could envision.
I'd have liked to have seen a Saturn V lift off. I'd bet its takeoff would put a Shuttle takeoff or an SR71 takeoff to shame. They have one on display at the cape, that thing is HUGE. It looks like a round skyscraper laying on its side.
Free Martian Whores!
As usual the NASA TV channel (well, the stream since that's all I can get from it here in Australia) provided me with the last three days and will provide me in the coming days with untouched unhyped `just the facts' 24x7 reality TV. Just the way I love it :-)
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