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.

Comments

Your official guide to the Jigaboo presidency

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations on your purchase of a brand new nigger! If handled properly, your apeman will give years of valuable, if reluctant, service.

INSTALLING YOUR NIGGER.
You should install your nigger differently according to whether you have purchased the field or house model. Field niggers work best in a serial configuration, i.e. chained together. Chain your nigger to another nigger immediately after unpacking it, and don't even think about taking that chain off, ever. Many niggers start singing as soon as you put a chain on them. This habit can usually be thrashed out of them if nipped in the bud. House niggers work best as standalone units, but should be hobbled or hamstrung to prevent attempts at escape. At this stage, your nigger can also be given a name. Most owners use the same names over and over, since niggers become confused by too much data. Rufus, Rastus, Remus, Toby, Carslisle, Carlton, Hey-You!-Yes-you!, Yeller, Blackstar, and Sambo are all effective names for your new buck nigger. If your nigger is a ho, it should be called Latrelle, L'Tanya, or Jemima. Some owners call their nigger hoes Latrine for a joke. Pearl, Blossom, and Ivory are also righteous names for nigger hoes. These names go straight over your nigger's head, by the way.

CONFIGURING YOUR NIGGER
Owing to a design error, your nigger comes equipped with a tongue and vocal chords. Most niggers can master only a few basic human phrases with this apparatus - "muh dick" being the most popular. However, others make barking, yelping, yapping noises and appear to be in some pain, so you should probably call a vet and have him remove your nigger's tongue. Once de-tongued your nigger will be a lot happier - at least, you won't hear it complaining anywhere near as much. Niggers have nothing interesting to say, anyway. Many owners also castrate their niggers for health reasons (yours, mine, and that of women, not the nigger's). This is strongly recommended, and frankly, it's a mystery why this is not done on the boat

HOUSING YOUR NIGGER.
Your nigger can be accommodated in cages with stout iron bars. Make sure, however, that the bars are wide enough to push pieces of nigger food through. The rule of thumb is, four niggers per square yard of cage. So a fifteen foot by thirty foot nigger cage can accommodate two hundred niggers. You can site a nigger cage anywhere, even on soft ground. Don't worry about your nigger fashioning makeshift shovels out of odd pieces of wood and digging an escape tunnel under the bars of the cage. Niggers never invented the shovel before and they're not about to now. In any case, your nigger is certainly too lazy to attempt escape. As long as the free food holds out, your nigger is living better than it did in Africa, so it will stay put. Buck niggers and hoe niggers can be safely accommodated in the same cage, as bucks never attempt sex with black hoes.

FEEDING YOUR NIGGER.
Your Nigger likes fried chicken, corn bread, and watermelon. You should therefore give it none of these things because its lazy ass almost certainly doesn't deserve it. Instead, feed it on porridge with salt, and creek water. Your nigger will supplement its diet with whatever it finds in the fields, other niggers, etc. Experienced nigger owners sometimes push watermelon slices through the bars of the nigger cage at the end of the day as a treat, but only if all niggers have worked well and nothing has been stolen that day. Mike of the Old Ranch Plantation reports that this last one is a killer, since all niggers steal something almost every single day of their lives. He reports he doesn't have to spend much on free watermelon for his niggers as a result. You should never allow your nigger meal breaks while at work, since if it stops work for more than ten minutes it will need to be retrained. You would be surprised how long it takes to teach a nigger to pick cotton. You really would. Coffee beans? Don't ask. You have no idea.

MAKING YOUR NIGGER WORK.
Niggers are very, very averse to work of any kind. The nigger's most

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Blasts off with a First Post Bitches!!

MOD PARENT RACIST

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a Black man and am sick and tired of this things. CmdrTaco, could we get a -1, Racist moderation for the moderators hear at Slashdot?

Re:MOD PARENT RACIST

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not a black man, you're a Jew faggot.

Re:MOD PARENT RACIST

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I am a Black man.

Re:MOD PARENT RACIST

[Anonymous Coward]

hear? hear what?

Re:MOD PARENT RACIST

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a Black man and am sick and tired of this things. CmdrTaco, could we get a -1, Racist moderation for the moderators hear at Slashdot?

Make that a +1, Racist.

That's impressive !

[Anonymous Coward]

NEWS : I've done my job today. More at 11.

Extended?

[Chris Lawrence]

Now that the return to the moon has been cancelled, I wonder if NASA will extend Shuttle missions beyond this year? They have already hinted they may extend the life of the ISS, but are they going to rely on the Russians for the next ten years?

Re:Extended?

[djmartins]

If they do extend shuttle flights it will only take a few years to blow up the ones they have left....

Re:Extended?

[vlm]

If they do extend shuttle flights it will only take a few years to blow up the ones they have left....

It may be modded funny right now, but its also correct. If an orbiter is destroyed every 50 flights, and they launch ten times per year, and they've only got two available (because of the need for a ready to go rescue orbiter).

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.

Re:Extended?

[sznupi]

Shuttle supply chain is winding now for quite some time, I wouldn't be very surprised if continuing it would be end up similarly costly to pushing Constellation and both Ares rockets forward...but with only three orbiters and not much to do with them.

Shuttle is past its time; it wasn't really used as intented (landing quickly after launch to escape shutdown attempt), bringing down satellites was quickly abandoned, new space telescopes are beyond its abilities anyway, and we can launch space station modules performing rendezvous by themselves. We just need it this last few times to launch modules...designed to be launched by Shuttle.

Re:Extended?

[Chris Lawrence]

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

Re:Extended?

[captainpanic]

So?
Some soldiers never return... why so afraid to kill a few astronauts in the name of science?

Keep sending the shuttles up until they don't return. Those rovers on Mars kept running for 6 years rather than 90 days - the remaining shuttles might surprise us.

Re:Extended?

[stoolpigeon]

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.

Re:Extended?

[Geoffrey.landis]

Now that the return to the moon has been cancelled, I wonder if NASA will extend Shuttle missions beyond this year?

Extremely unlikely; Congress zeroed out the money to do that, and so the parts simply aren't in the pipeline and the facilities to prepare for flights beyond 2010 have shut down. If they wanted to keep the shuttle flying, they needed to have kept that option open (with funding) several years ago.

If they do extend shuttle flights it will only take a few years to blow up the ones they have left....

It may be modded funny right now, but its also correct. If an orbiter is destroyed every 50 flights, and they launch ten times per year

I don't think any of these assumptions are correct. It was about a hundred flights between the first shuttle loss and the second, so it's hard to justify an estimated loss rate much higher than about one in a hundred (and if the Columbia problem is indeen understood and mitigated, less.) And they've never had a flight rate of ten per year before, so it's unlikely that they would increase the flight rate when the program is cancelled.

Re:Extended?

[jollyreaper]

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?

Re:Extended?

[DerekLyons]

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?

Not really. Much higher and the other vehicles (Soyuz, ATV, etc...) won't be able to reach it either. On top of that, while under thrust the micro gee environment aboard the station will ruined, ruining practically every experiment onboard.

Re:Extended?

[L4t3r4lu5]

Of course they can!

Now, will you be paying by debit card or bank transfer?

Re:Extended?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a reference to Hubble, but unfortunately Hubble is also just an excuse for the shuttle to exist. It would be far cheaper (and better) to launch new space telescopes with disposable rockets than it would be to maintain Hubble.

Re:Extended?

[Lumpy]

The Artist formerly known as the USSR will never allow it. Cripes they kept Mir in orbit with duct tape and chewing gum for 5 years after expected life, They could keep ISS up there operational well into 2020.

Re:Extended?

[Lumpy]

Just take all the money I'm promised by the several Nigerian bankers and kings that have been offering me cash over the past month, There's at lease 2.2 billion right there.

Re:Extended?

[Anonymous Coward]

FY 2011 Budget request specifically outlines an expectation of continuing ISS utilization until 2020. As other posters have mentioned, we have already shut down the External Tank factories, making it pretty certain the shuttle will not stay up till 2016.

The implied assumption that a gap won't exist is misleading at best. The Augustine Report found that the gap would be 6 years minimum with Constellation. Contracting with private corps for delivery of humans to space was estimated at 5-8 years to complete. And of course neither of these options is ten years.

The Ares V is likely to be saved in some form. We have a large need for a SHLV. FY2011 Budget Request begins funding for development of SHLV technology 5 years before the program of record would have begun funding Ares V. Program of Record funding was also contingent on ISS deorbit in 2016. Which means the choice in 2016 was super heavy lift or ISS maintenance. The choice has been shifted by the administration to SHLV vs HLV in 2011. Now would you pick a launcher in a crowded field (20-30,000 kg to LEO) or one that would be unique (130-160,000 kg to LEO)?

Obligatory citation:
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/396093main_HSF_Cmte_FinalReport.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_heavy_lift_launch_systems
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_super_heavy_lift_launch_systems
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/420990main_FY_201_%20Budget_Overview_1_Feb_2010.pdf

Re:Extended?

[Low Ranked Craig]

At the rate we're going with debt, it's probably more like never. But don't worry, at least we'll have solved global warming and global hunger by then.

Re:Extended?

[dpilot]

So the number of "Space Camps" is increasing...

The biggest camp is the "Every decision NASA makes is wrong"
- The Shuttle is the biggest boondoggle ever, we never should have dropped the Apollo-era Big Dumb Booster.
- Dropping the Shuttle is the dumbest idea ever, we've set our technology back 40 years.
- Etc, with every decision NASA makes

Then we have the closely related camp, "Everything the government does is wrong, and the private sector can do it better and cheaper."

Now that we're about to test that theorem, at least with LEO access, a new camp has emerged, saying that by dropping LEO access, NASA has abandoned human space travel for the US. Interestingly enough, it has taken Aries from "can't possibly work" to "can't do without it" status.

This of course is closely related to the "Obama (and Democrats, in general) is ALWAYS wrong" and "Bush (and Republicans, in general) is ALWAYS wrong" camps.

I prefer to belong to none of the above camps. Through my career I've noticed in general that killed projects tend to develop a sunny afterglow, problems forgotten. Projects that are killed before ever being tested in the real world get a particularly sunny afterglow.

Re:Extended?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think that article means what you think it means...

Seems to be saying that Constellation is a failed concept that has trouble meeting target dates and might not even take humans beyond LEO.

Re:Extended?

[Wyatt Earp]

In theory, but actually, if Hubble had been launched the same way KH satellites are, once the optical flaw was found Congress would have never budgeted the money to NASA to build one that worked. So we'd be stuck with the joke that Hubble couldn't see and no one would have floated another space telescope.

Hubble isn't an excuse for the Shuttle, the Shuttle was an excuse to upgrade the only astronomy space telescope.

Re:Extended?

[khallow]

You'd think that with 300+ million people in the US, we'd have a lot of experience in agreeing on stuff like this. Where could all these "camps" be coming from?

More seriously, decision making for both such a large group of people and the variety of possible goals is going to be extremely difficult. A lot of private efforts have better organization simply because goals are decided at the start. People who don't want the goal don't join the group. With a country, everyone belongs for other reasons, so consensus is impossible expect on things that are pretty obvious (eg, we won't send up newborns to make sure life support systems work). Complaining that 300 million people don't have the same desires and goals really isn't useful.

We'll just have to see what becomes of this current effort. We don't even know for sure that it isn't a covert attempt to vastly reduce the size and power of NASA in the long run (but if that were the long term intent of the Obama administration, surely there are more effective ways to do that). One positive feature is that even though no explicit long term plans or goals have been made (aside from extending the life of the ISS and some Earth study stuff), it does further a lot of the "camps'" goals simultaneously. There is potential for a useful contribution to US activities in space on a variety of fronts.

Re:Extended?

[khallow]

You also need to consider that the ion propulsion merely needs to be under the threshold. For example, we already know atmospheric drag is less than the threshold else the station wouldn't have a microgravity environment to sully. Ion propulsion that just happens to exactly counter atmospheric drag would even improve the microgravity environment. Further, as I understand it, there is already some sort of electric propulsion on the ISS.

Re:Extended?

[Chris Burke]

Don't forget the "NASA robot 'helps' boy by launching him into space" Space Camp! Not as popular as it used to be, but I'm sticking with it.

But seriously. I'm not convinced that the private sector will succeed, but I do think taking the chance is a better idea than continuing with the Shuttle or Constellation. I'm somewhat heartened by the fact that pretty much all of the rocket engineering was already being done by private companies. So as far as the process of developing launch vehicles go, the shift is probably more subtle than most people first think.

Re:Extended?

[bramblez]

Practical knowledge about manned space flight? That assumes there's anything practical about humans in space. The only reason to have astronauts is PR, a morally dubious risk to human life. When we do return to the moon or go to mars, it should only be after autonomous robots have built us a comfy lab. Until then, investing in technologies to keep our meat alive is a waste of money and an insult to real science.

Re:Extended?

[Chris Lawrence]

That assumes the only goal is science.

Re:Extended?

[DerekLyons]

While certainly you could operate an ion thruster to 'balance' atmospheric drag (AIUI) that won't raise it to a higher altitude as specified by the OP. However, it consumes a great deal of power (and the ISS doesn't have all that great an excess over requirements). It would also potentially contaminate the environment around the ISS and reduce the usefulness of the experiments requiring exposure to space. (Not that evaluating the effects of an ion engine local contamination wouldn't be useful mind you.)
 
You need to keep in mind that most of the time the ISS operates in a condition where it is held in a fixed inertial attitude to maximize microgravity purity. Because of this, an onboard ion thruster would only be pointed in the proper direction for a few minutes each orbit, if it were ever pointed in a useful direction at all. I supposed you could mount it on an articulated mount, but then the vibration issue needs to be addressed.
 
And yes, atmospheric drag does reduce the quality of the micro gee environment onboard ISS. This is taken into account when designing and operating experiments onboard.
 
The electric thruster onboard is (AIUI) either non propulsive or operates at such a low level that it doesn't violate the microgravity thresholds.

Re:Extended?

[rbanffy]

There are a couple good reasons to place it at the altitude it is. One is the higher it is the less cargo you can ferry there (you trade height for fuel mass). Another is space junk. If it is in a height that needs regular boosts to stay there, it also means junk that happens to be in that altitude will fall down to Earth, rendering that space relatively junk free. The station would need more bulletproofing if it were to go higher.

Re:Extended?

[ilyag]

Sure, the shuttle went to fix the Hubble, and it was great. But remember for how long before then NASA was waffling on whether to allow this mission, or cancel it because it's too dangerous to go someplace where you can't bail out to the space station? Even though this kind of missions are exactly what the Shuttle was designed to do?

I think it's pretty clear that even if the Shuttle stayed in service, it would only be going to the ISS from now on. Which would be as much a shame as them canceling it, if not more (tons of money would be spent on something pretty useless, and cheaper to do with expendable rockets).

Re:Extended?

[NNKK]

Serenity is sitting stuck on Mars. This isn't hypothetical, it's happening _now_. If we had humans there, someone could literally walk over and pull it out of the sand so it could be on its way.

Tell me again what the insult to science is?

Re:Extended?

[Deadstick]

A night launch of the shuttle is the most impressive feat of human engineering I have ever witnessed.

That's because you never saw a Saturn V launch at night.

rj

Re:Extended?

[Graymalkin]

This is a bit of an absurd statement. Even if absolutely every aspect of the Area I program went according to plan it wouldn't see a manned mission until 2016. Even then it will only do a handful of launches per year (IIRC only two Orion missions are scheduled per year once they begin) with each costing about a billion dollars. Since the Ares I can barely launch the Orion with a crew on board the only thing it can do is send crews to the ISS. Until the Ares V is finished and actually working the Ares I is a billion dollar taxi ride to the ISS. It simply cannot do anything else. That same taxi ride on a Soyuz would only cost about $75m as the Russians only charge $25m a seat on the Soyuz. SpaceX is feeling pretty confident about the Falcon 9 and NASA is planning to use them as a taxi service as well.

The Orion is not necessarily a bad spacecraft but the Ares program was basically a jobs program for major STS contractors. I think it should be obvious now that Ares was chosen over other HLVs because it could funnel money into Congressional districts with contractors or NASA facilities. Ares is a aerospace contractor jobs program. It wasn't a good idea on paper and it has turned out to be even worse in practice. The Obama administration proposing to axe the program and refocus on developing a real HLV (like DIRECT or the SDLV) is exactly what needs to happen. The job of the Ares I can be done entirely by the Soyuz or the Falcon 9 for a much better cost.

A good portion of NASA is bureaucracy and if that gets trimmed by axing the Ares program then all the better. A lot of them can easily get jobs in the private sector weighing down the middles of corporations so they shouldn't be out of work long.

Re:Extended?

[DerekLyons]

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.

Actually, that's 100% backwards. The original purpose of the Shuttle was to supply and support a space station performing research in space. (The orbital equivalent of an Antarctic research station or something like Sealab.) Which is why it's called a shuttle in the first place.* It was meant to travel back and forth between two points - station and launch/recovery site. All the other capabilities, satellite deployment and recovery, etc... etc..., were added to the Shuttle when the station (and the heavy lift boosters to build it) were axed from the budget in the late sixties and early seventies.**
 
That's why, if you examine the history of Shuttle designs, you see a sudden rise in weight, complexity, and cost*** in that time period. That's why the Shuttle was already moving in a direction that made it (relatively) easy to modify the design to bring the DoD onboard. That's why the Shuttle was marketed as being 'all things to all people'. That's why rising costs lead the Administration and Congress to cap the development budget.
 
The other functions (that shuttle had as built) were steadily cut back not due to budget cuts, but in reaction to the Challenger and Columbia accidents. The former is why NASA stopped lifting commercial satellites and payloads. The latter is why the Shuttle stopped flying independently, except for the controversial Hubble servicing mission.
 
 

No one makes money off a built station that has been budget crunched to the point that it does nothing.

Had the station been budget crunched to the point where it does nothing, you'd have a point. To be sure it's a hell of a lot less useful than it could have been, but does nothing is a bit extreme. You also have to realize that much of the cost of the station (as built) stems from two causes. The first is the constant changes to stations scope and function imposed by Congress in the 80's (leading to multiple expensive redesigns). The second is the decision to shift the station to an orbit the Russians could reach so as to funnel welfare in the direction of their space program and rocket engineers in order to keep them employed and thus unlikely to sell their services to states more interested in weapons than science.
 
* The definition of shuttle, uncontaminated by the current Shuttle, in the Webster's 1913 dictionary makes this even clearer.
 
** The Administration and Congress were actually right in this however - the heavy lift boosters used for station deployment would have had an extraordinarily low flight rate and thus would have been extraordinarily expensive. Which is why I've often thought that we should revisit the original shuttle concept now that heavy lift boosters are commercially available.
 
*** Complexity and cost in particular are strongly bound. When you have to use 'extreme engineering' to meet your performance goals, your costs are going to rise sharply. As Elon Musk is attempting to demonstrate (and already has to some extent) when you can simplify your design, engineering, and manufacturing, launch costs can drop dramatically.

Re:Extended?

[stoolpigeon]

I don't doubt that this is true.

Re:Extended?

[J05H]

That depends on what you define as "US manned spaceflight". If you mean NASA owned and operated spacecraft, the answer is likely "never". If you mean indigenous US crewed launch owned and operated by one or several commercial providers, the answer is "in a few years but no later than 2015". Bolden and Obama are pushing to make space accesss common and much cheaper by fostering private providers. After 40 years of kicking and screaming, NASA is being forced to adopt the air-mail model of space development.

Re:Extended?

[Chris Lawrence]

People have been promising private spaceflight for decades. I admit, it's getting closer, but the level of experience and capability is still very limited. I hope you're right and we have a new renaissance in space travel, but I'm very skeptical. But, I guess we just have to wait and see.

Re:Extended?

[mcgrew]

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.

Re:Extended?

[guruevi]

I thought that Hubble was totally cancelled - there won't be any more repairs or enhancements made. So the parent is correct that 'due to budget crunches' the only place a shuttle would go is the ISS and the only reason the ISS is there is to dock a shuttle.

Re:Extended?

[afidel]

No, Falcon 9 and the Dragon module should allow for manned missions to the ISS.

Re:Extended?

[JavaBasedOS]

I would go with you calling Spirit "Serenity" pretty up there as an insult.

Re:Extended?

[sconeu]

Well, there was only one night launch of a Saturn V -- Apollo 17. And yes, it was impressive as hell.

Re:Extended?

[Anonymous Coward]

Robots are great at localized analysis, but humans are better at taking in the big picture and finding the diamonds in the rough. Could you imagine Spirit finding the Genesis Rock from Apollo 15 if it was plopped down on the landing site? (I'd guess it'd take six months to a year for Spirit to get there, assuming it could traverse the terrain.)

Re:Extended?

[Grishnakh]

The biggest camp is the "Every decision NASA makes is wrong"
- The Shuttle is the biggest boondoggle ever, we never should have dropped the Apollo-era Big Dumb Booster.
- Dropping the Shuttle is the dumbest idea ever, we've set our technology back 40 years.
- Etc, with every decision NASA makes

Then we have the closely related camp, "Everything the government does is wrong, and the private sector can do it better and cheaper."

Yes, the Shuttle was a monumentally stupid idea. The space capsule method of Apollo and the Russian program makes far more sense than the overpriced and not-as-capable Shuttle.

However, right now, the Shuttle is the only thing we have. It's better than nothing at all. So dropping it IS a dumb idea, for the current time. We SHOULD be developing new lift capability, perhaps based on Shuttle technology (like the DIRECT program). If we abandon manned spaceflight now, we probably won't get it back for many decades, if ever. More likely, it'll be never: other nations will build up their manned spaceflight ability in the meantime, and we'll be just has-beens. There won't be any reason for us to spend tons of money (which we don't have, considering how much we owe other nations) on manned spaceflight in 10+ years when you can just get one of the other countries to do it.

NASA's decisions aren't that dumb; they're constrained by their puny budget and Congressional mandates.

And yes, everything the government does IS wrong. This doesn't mean the private sector can do it better, however. Remember, it was the private sector that flew men to the moon, not NASA. NASA didn't build any rocket engines for Apollo; Rocketdyne corporation did. But without government funding and oversight and project management, there won't be a manned spaceflight program, because there's no quick economic payback for it.

As for everything the government doing being wrong, it's true. But this is only true for the stupid US government. Other governments aren't so stupid, shortsighted, and corrupt. Some up-and-coming countries, like China, would rather spend their taxpayer money on productive ventures like a manned space program, rather than fighting middle-easterners in a religious/oil war. Americans aren't smart enough to pick leaders with long-term vision, so this is the result.

Re:Extended?

[FleaPlus]

So, without the new Constellation Program, we're looking at what, fifteen years before the US has manned spaceflight capability again?

Incorrect. With the Constellation program, the estimated time to completion was 7-9 years. With the new commercial LEO crew access program, with Boeing, SpaceX, ULA, and Sierra Nevada, the time to develop manned spaceflight capability ranges from 3-5 years, depending on the company, after which we'll have multiple redundant ways to get to orbit instead of just one. Their time and cost estimates are much lower because they're using rockets which already exist (and in the case of Boeing, Sierra Nevada, and ULA, will be using rockets which have dozens of consecutive successful launches already). Also, they only get paid if they meet preset milestones, unlike Constellation which paid its contractors regardless of how much they were screwing up.

Re:Extended?

[Chris Lawrence]

Right, but these are guys that have never delivered before. And there have been many delays. Didn't SpaceX *promise* they would have humans orbit by several years ago? Now, I don't mean to lay blame, this is hard stuff, and it takes a lot of money. But you run into the same problem as with many other tech companies. Yet get vapourware that often never shows up.

Now, if *Apple* was into space exploration, they would remain completely silent, then one day they would actually launch Steve Jobs into space, and he'd give a live press conference about it while floating in zero-G. :)

Re:Extended?

[Chris Lawrence]

Actually, I take that back. Apple would never be happy just getting to orbit. Steve Jobs would be giving his presentation from the moon, if not Mars. :)

Re:Extended?

[FleaPlus]

Right, but these are guys that have never delivered before.

Huh? Boeing's been operating the Delta rocket family since 1960, with over 300 orbital rockets launched. The United Launch Alliance has just announced that they've launched 36 consecutive successful missions in 36 months. Never delivered before, you say?

Re:Extended?

[Chris Lawrence]

Sorry, obviously I meant delivering on *manned* spaceflight. Of course private companies have been providing launch services for decades.

Re:Extended?

[Chris Lawrence]

Hey, I love Firefly too, but get the name right!

Re:Extended?

[Ol Olsoc]

You missed the camp of " Either do something or don't do it"

To my way of thinking the biggest issue is that we don't give NASA a goal and then get out of the way.

During the early days of the space program, they had designs, and then they made them work. If a design was bad, such as the first Apollo, they went back and made it work. The made their goals. It was obviously a political move, but they were allowed to do their thing.

The "Git 'er done" is not always the perfect solution, witness the shuttle itself. Anyone still think that perching the orbiter on the side of the fuel tank is a good idea? History might have been a little different if we had a shuttle perched on top, without the main engines inside it. Anyhow, it's still the coolest machine ever made, warts and all. But it was a machine designed and built with a alliance of engineers and politicians.

But now, we have the NASA mission changed every 4 years or so. If a design doesn't work pretty much out of the box, it is canceled. It is impossible to not waste money under a system like that.

I hope that they are saving all the plans and equipment they have started on and then were forced to abandon over the years. Because with the constant change, it might come back as a new program.

Re:Extended?

[dpilot]

I think some of the "good old days" of NASA were the nostalgia of imperfect memory. Even were I to grant your point during Apollo, that era didn't last much beyond Apollo 11 - the program was mostly on inertia by that point. Apollo 13 was a fantastic triumph yanked from the jaws of failure, and I'm really glad that Apollo 17 made it, so we could actually watch lift-off from another world. But 18-20 were all canceled, and Skylab/ASTP basically used the spare parts.

The way I heard it, Nixon really disliked Apollo, because it was Kennedy's vision. So your "changed every 4 years or so" really started when Nixon delegated to Agnew to outline the new mission, "Mars is next, but there's no hurry."

Boom rumble rumble rumble

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Re:Boom rumble rumble rumble

[realsilly]

I don't know why someone marked this as Off Topic. Boom Rumble Rumble Rumble is true to the sound the the Shuttle on lift off. It's a great sound that just bowls one over.

Re:Boom rumble rumble rumble

[mcgrew]

I don't know why someone marked this as Off Topic

I would guess it was the "Paul's Steakhouse Rocks the block and Arby's sucks... you know why!"

He was obvioudly going for "funny", and posted AC because he knows how dangerous to your karma trying to be funny can be.

Is this really news?

[elrous0]

And, considering the bleak future of the shuttle program, the ISS, and manned spaceflight in general, wouldn't a more appropriate headline be "NASA puts another $700 million on the national credit card for our grandkids to pay off"?

Re:Is this really news?

[hairyfeet]

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.

Re:Is this really news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your grandkids maybe..

I'm a geek. I wont be having kids. Let alone grandkids..

So fuckit! Blast that money into space! screw all those grandkids! aaaaaaahahahaha!

We'll bail their asses out anyway... Dont act like we wont.

Re:Is this really news?

[ColdWetDog]

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.

And we should not continue farm subsidies, wars in obscure places for no strategic interest or gain, enormous financial support for incompetent bankers, stock traders, real estate mavens and a host of other dumb things the government does.

NASA is a really cheap date when you look at the totality of the US budget.

Re:Is this really news?

[elrous0]

10 wrongs don't make a right.

Re:Is this really news?

[LBt1st]

I'd rather my tax dollars go into the space program then all this other shit:
http://foofus.com/amuse/public/Fedspending-2008-linechart.jpg

Re:Is this really news?

[Hatta]

Our grandkids aren't paying shit off. The US will default.

Re:Is this really news?

[Rhys]

You're ready to deliver a fully competent human-level AI to NASA then right? Otherwise you need to read up on all the delays and similar problems with Spirit and Opportunity before you talk about robots being the clearly superior advantage. Until the robot can take some brains with it, it is vastly inferior to a human. Sure, Spirit and Opportunity have done a fantastic job. But stop and ask when they measure movement in a few meters per day, max, how much more could have been done if there was an iss-alike orbiting Mars where the human controllers had near-instant responsiveness to the robots?

Unless you have FTL communication or true AIs, us meatbags still have a point in space. Maybe not in near-earth orbit where the speed of light is good enough. Though without doing some technology development with ourselves up in a nearby orbit we aren't going to be ready to be orbiting Mars driving a rover anyway.

Re:Is this really news?

[hairyfeet]

And how would YOU suggest we proceed? Last I checked for a mission to Mars we are talking about a craft the size of the Empire State building to get a crew there and back, unless of course you are gonna just strand them there to die?

We have to simply accept the fact that with today's tech the cost of getting even a crew of two to anyplace interesting is just too astronomical, pardon the pun. Even the amount of resources required to get us into LEO is frankly crazy when you consider how much you could get done with a robot of less than half that weight. We humans are simply fragile creatures that need a whole lot of resources to survive, and when you are talking the vast distances of space every pound counts.

That isn't to say we shouldn't try to develop better propulsion, although I would argue that would be better left to private enterprise thanks to the good old boy network and the way contracts get parceled out to the states via congress, it is just at this time it really isn't practical to send meat bags when robots would do. At I'm sure less than half the cost of a manned mission to Mars you could put up a satellite relay system between here and there and control any droids in near real time. Last I checked it would take us 3 years to get there, yes? Do you know how much food, water, air, medicine, etc, would be required for such a voyage? Space is simply too vast for any real exploration to be done by humans, unless you are simply appealing to the "Buck Rogers/ Star Trek" crowd.

Re:Is this really news?

[elrous0]

Great, then we get to kiss our corporations goodbye, watch the dollar turn into worthless paper, and enjoy debtor nation status for decades. I guess we better relearn those sustenance farming skills.

Re:Is this really news?

[Hatta]

I know, sucks doesn't it. I'm not advocating it by any means, but it's a lot more plausible than actually paying everything back.

Re:Is this really news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps not, but at least sending people into space teaches us... y'know... how to keep people alive in space.

What did pumping trillions of dollars into banks teach us? That we can keep doing the exact same damn thing because if we screw up again, the government will just pump more money than most people can comprehend into it to fix it anyway?

Yeah, the potential for learning is endless in the second scenario.

Re:Is this really news?

[Grishnakh]

It's not just learning cool things about space, other planets/moons, and how to keep people alive in space (though those are all very worthy goals). NASA has pumped billions of dollars back into the economy due to spin-off technologies. I've seen estimates between 7 and 40: for every dollar the US spent on NASA back in the Apollo days, it gave back 7 to 40 dollars in economic benefits, mainly from advanced technologies. Miniaturized surface-mount circuit board technology, for instance, was invented for the space program, and is one of the big reasons we're able to have iPods and laptop computers. Sure, it probably would have been invented eventually without NASA, but it would have taken longer and we might still be stuck with 486s right now.

A lot of people, both liberal and conservative, falsely view economics as a zero-sum game. New technologies cause an economy to grow: more economic activity, more money for all. So taking a little money from your paycheck and funding advanced science and technology ventures is an investment, and actually gives back to you later through better, cheaper goods, better, higher-paying jobs, etc. In the end, your standard of living is higher than if you had held onto that tax money and spent it on yourself. (Of course, this doesn't hold true for all government spending: taking your tax dollars and spending them on mismanaged financial institutions, lazy welfare recipients who don't want to work, foreign aid for countries with corrupt regimes, a giant bloated military whose main use is in securing our access to a diminishing resource, etc. is not productive, and is just a waste. You'd be better of keeping that money and spending it on useful goods and services, helping out other Americans economically).

Re:Is this really news?

[Anonymous Coward]

More like .002 wrongs don't make a right, but not much of a wrong either. If NASA's budget tripled, it would still show only a tiny ripple in the overall budget.

Re:Is this really news?

[elrous0]

Eh, works for me. If the dollar was worthless, it would be a helluva lot easier to pay back my student loans.

Re:Is this really news?

[khallow]

And how would YOU suggest we proceed? Last I checked for a mission to Mars we are talking about a craft the size of the Empire State building to get a crew there and back

How about a vehicle smaller than the Empire State building? Another Slashdot problem... boo dah dah boo dah dah boo dah BOOM ... fixed.

We humans are simply fragile creatures that need a whole lot of resources to survive, and when you are talking the vast distances of space every pound counts.

Spend some of that health care money on making HARD human bodies! Another Slashdot problem... boo dah dah... etc

Seriously, it's a hard problem, but you're not adding anything. Even with zero recycling of resources, humans don't consume that much, perhaps 5-10 kg of stuff a day. For a three year trip that's up to 12 metric tons of stuff per person. Sounds like a lot, but it's just mass and that mass can double as radiation shielding. Remember we're assuming zero recycling as well. Once we recycle most of what humans consume, then humans no longer need a whole lot of resources to survive.

Let's continue with the assumption of no recycling. If we use mundane chemical propulsion (LOX/LH2), then at a glance, we need up to 9 metric tons of propellant for each metric ton. That means 120 tons of stuff for each person, most of which is propellant. At $10,000 per kg (current prices so I hear for the Delta IV Heavy or Atlas V), that would be $1.2 billion per person. It's rather high, but comparable to some of the fancier unmanned probes to Mars. If we can get launch costs down to $1,000 per kg, then you can put the people, their food, and propellant on a rocket for around $120 million per person, which is pretty cheap compared to current Mars missions. Given that a human can do a lot more on the surface of Mars than robots, I think it's foolish to keep harping on the fragility of human life, especially given that it's not that fragile.

Re:Is this really news?

[R3d M3rcury]

While we're at it, we should close McMurdo Station, Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, and cancel the plans to reopen the Byrd Station. 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.

In case you're missing it, I'm being sarcastic.

I don't necessarily disagree with you, however. Personally, I'd like to see a little less exploration and a little more exploitation going on. I've babbled here a few times about setting up launch facilities on the Moon--complete with production--so that we can use some of the more exotic drive technologies that exist without worrying about polluting our atmosphere or the dreaded "What-If" scenarios.

Re:Is this really news?

[initialE]

"For while we cannot guarantee that we shall one day be first, we can guarantee that any failure to make this effort will make us last." - JFK. Solving the national debt issue may be important, but so is securing the future. In any case, if you were serious about ending debt then you should be looking at the war expenses first anyway - it is several orders of magnitude higher than anything else you are spending money on.

Re:Is this really news?

[lennier]

wars in obscure places for no strategic interest or gain

Exactly! We should switch to wars in highly visible locations prosecuted for pure strategic self-interest and naked greed.

Political correctness

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't say "blast" any more.

Made in Italy

[GhigoRenzulli]

It's always very nice when made in Italy stuff reaches (literally) the top of the world.

It's not very nice that I have to learn it reading here (and it's not a /. fault this time).

No one in Italy (television, newspapers and so on) gave a decent review of this important achievement.

Information system in Italy is TFU.

Help us! We need CowboyNeal at government!

Re:Made in Italy

[vlm]

No one in Italy (television, newspapers and so on) gave a decent review of this important achievement.

Probably because we launched "San Marco 1" for you guys way back in '64, and your "sky italia" service rents space on "Hot Bird 8" launched by the french. I have no idea why wikipedia claims sky italia runs on HB7A which is no longer at 13 deg E but moved to 9 deg E when they launched HB9, but thats wikipedia for you. Maybe they used to use HB7A before they replaced it with HB8. My point is its kind of 'been there done that'

Think of it as a wake instead

[OldEarthResident]

Try thinking of it as a wake for the US manned spaceflight program.

It saddens me to see the US lose it's manned spaceflight capability.

two pre-order for Shuttle parts

[peter303]

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.

Space Diner

[Anonymous Coward]

I foresee the day when a new roadside American icon takes the place of the Pullman diner car, a decommissioned roadside space shuttle fuselage.

Breakfast: The Challenger Omellette
Lunch: The Endeavor Burger
Dinner: Carne Asada Columbia

No, think of it as a great service to the world

[Anonymous Coward]

The sooner America no longer has access to space, the safer the rest of us will be. American domination of space must cease. In fact, America would do the world a great service to surrender to the rule of a proper civilized government like England or Germany. No other first-world country allows citizens to possess murder weapons or shout hate language in the streets. The sooner America is gone and forgotten (except maybe as an example of how NOT to run a government) the better off we will be. Much like Nazi Germany, it is a shame that such scientific progress is done by such an evil, hateful regime.

Re:No, think of it as a great service to the world

[Anonymous Coward]

Does America have too much freedom for you? I haven't heard anybody complain about not being censored.

Re:No, think of it as a great service to the world

[Anonymous Coward]

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."- Churchill

Re:No, think of it as a great service to the world

[Anonymous Coward]

Does America have too much freedom for you? I haven't heard anybody complain about not being censored.

You also won't hear anybody complaining about being censored either (since they have been censored)
so your sentence is nonsense.

Re:No, think of it as a great service to the world

[Loconut1389]

It is perfectly possible to be censored on one topic while not on another. It happens all the time. For example the Bettendorf Iowa school newspaper (The Growl) was recently censored because of a supposed disclosure of identifying information in an article about jocks getting preferential academic leniency. The students are complaining. But by your logic, we should never have heard about the censoring because they were censored. The paper was censored, sure, but now they've got the Streisand effect to deal with, which wouldn't exist either without topic limited censorship.

Re:No, think of it as a great service to the world

[Anonymous Coward]

You also won't hear anybody complaining about being censored either (since they have been censored)

They've been sued for copyright infringement.

Last Night Launch

[realsilly]

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.

Re:Last Night Launch

[stoolpigeon]

I had to leave the house with about 7 minutes to go. They've added some new houses to our neighborhood and I like to walk past them to get a better view. When the sky to the east lights up, I think that is my favorite part. Though I do enjoy when the boosters separate as well.

Re:Last Night Launch

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for this post - makes me nostalgic as I will probably not see it from my own eyes (I'm in Europe and no transatlantic hop planned for this year).
But more and more seriously (even more reading your post, you lucky mate ;-)) considering a mission to go and see one of the last STS launches :-(

Re:Last Night Launch

[L4t3r4lu5]

Well shit, you could have filmed it...

Re:Last Night Launch

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh, up in Atlanta I tried to watch, woke up both potential early-mornings--but all I was greeted with was a couple of stars and the sickly grey of horrendous light pollution.

Re:Last Night Launch

[realsilly]

Sorry about the mis-spellings, I re-read what I wrote and my poor typing made me kick myself. Hopefully, it doesn't diminish the beauty that I tried to convey.

Re:Last Night Launch

[realsilly]

Sorry I didn't have a camera. And to be honest, until you can feel the real-life effects, the footage would have seemed a bit hollow by comparison.

Re:Last Night Launch

[Anonymous Coward]

Why didn't you capture this on video for us, you silly insensitive birthday suit clod!

Re:Last Night Launch

[rbanffy]

I agree with realsilly. L4t3r4lu5: you have to watch a launch first hand.

Actually, if more people did, manned space flight would be much more supported.

Re:Last Night Launch

[Altus]

not in the least.

I saw it from New Jersey!

[spaceman375]

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!

Re:I saw it from New Jersey!

[Anonymous Coward]

I DO believe in spaceships, I do, I do!

captcha: mooned

Decommission the shuttles in space?

[jgtg32a]

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?

Re:Decommission the shuttles in space?

[proslack]

Kind of like nailing a mobile home to your nice brick house...it'll give Cousin Eddie someplace *real nice* to stay while visiting.

Re:Decommission the shuttles in space?

[Anonymous Coward]

How would you get the astronauts back down? Also in low earth orbit you need to burn full regularly to keep things up there, because of atmospheric drag. But the biggest problem might be when the shuttle de-orbits, which it would have to eventually. The ISS would probably break apart and burn up, but the shuttle is specifically designed to not burn up, which means it could very likely crash into something on earth and cause significant damage.

Re:Decommission the shuttles in space?

[Lumpy]

Now the ISS will have shuttles up on blocks in the yard.... a mangy pitbull in a space suit tethered by the front porch..

Rednecks in spaaaaace...... Nope the other countries wont put up with it.

Re:Decommission the shuttles in space?

[dweinst]

Fallen Angels? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallen_Angels_(science_fiction_novel)

Re:Decommission the shuttles in space?

[Graymalkin]

Not in the slightest. There's two big hurdles using the Shuttles as long term space stations or hooking them up to the ISS. The first is the electrical power systems of the Shuttles. To provide power while in space the Shuttle uses hydrogen fuel cells where the ISS uses solar panels. While the fuel cells provide a lot of power to the Shuttle they do have a finite fuel supply. The life support system aboard the Shuttle is also a short duration design using chemical CO2 scrubbers. At best a Shuttle station would need to be refueled and resupplied every few weeks. Besides power and life support the Shuttle doesn't really carry its own scientific payload. If you were going to leave one in orbit you would need to send it up with a SpaceLab module or something to be able to do anything useful.

Hooking a Shuttle up to the ISS for long periods would also not be very useful since without the weekly resupply of hydrogen and oxygen the Shuttle would be a power and life support vampire for the ISS. It would also affect the ISS' atmospheric drag such that it would require more reboosts than it already does. These could not be performed by the Shuttle because it carries a limited fuel for its OMS/RCS system which can't be refueled in orbit. A Shuttle plugged into the ISS for a long period of time would end up being a dead weight with no real scientific utility of its own.

The Shuttles were designed for relatively short term missions and for resupply and refurbishment on the ground. Leaving them parked in orbit is a nice thought but ultimately impractical.

Re:Decommission the shuttles in space?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about 6-7 people that brought the shuttle into space?

Re:Decommission the shuttles in space?

[RevWaldo]

I'd think you'd need to keep it under blocks, to keep it from floating away.

Re:Decommission the shuttles in space?

[zmooc]

Well, those would not really be problems if the shuttle were just shut down and kept around for whenever it might prove to be useful. Or if it were adapted (by stuffing it full of solar panels for example) in order to solve those problems before becoming a part of the ISS. But that's not done either for the one and only real reason: in order to stay in orbit, the ISS needs a boost every now and then. That takes a tremendous amount of energy and since the Shuttle is really heavy because it has to withstand the forces of launch and reentry, keeping it around simply is not a good idea.

Re:Decommission the shuttles in space?

[Grishnakh]

Any way they could send one into a high orbit as a floating museum? Just in case we destroy ourselves, we'd at least leave something behind in good shape (besides the lunar lander) that visiting alien archaeologists could investigate.

This would probably take too much fuel though.

Re:Decommission the shuttles in space?

[Grishnakh]

They can practice HALO jumping.

I'm a rocket scientist, but...

[starglider29a]

One thing I don't understand is why the astronauts and CAPCOM sound like they are talking on tin cans & string. Anyone understand this? It's called SKYPE! Look into it.

Re:I'm a rocket scientist, but...

[durrr]

Many people talking at the same time can be confusing, they probably can talk at the same time but don't to keep the confusion to a minimum.
There is of course a better solution: they should give up voice altogether and start using IRC.

Re:I'm a rocket scientist, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Many people talking at the same time can be confusing, they probably can talk at the same time but don't to keep the confusion to a minimum.

I've taken a tours of both Kennedy's Control Room and Houston's Mission Control. There are several voice loops that NASA uses and they can be individually enabled or disabled at a headset. There are only a couple of people of people listening to more than a few loops at any one time during launch. The majority of the staff is focused on the particular system or sub-system assigned to them, and therefore only listening to the applicable voice loop(s).

There is of course a better solution: they should give up voice altogether and start using IRC.

I almost literally cut my teeth on MSDOS 2.0 (Dad gave me his old Eagle 81 computer when I was 5), so I have no fear of scrolling text. However, I don't think that would be net gain for NASA to drop the voice loops in favor of IRC. Remember that most of the people working in the control rooms are monitoring more than one screen already. The switch to IRC would require split their visual focus to yet another batch of visual information. Also, most people can listen to someone talk while watching something simultaneously without much difficulty because audio and visual information are processed in different parts of the brain. Thus using an audio feed is complementary rather than competing sensory input.

The first shuttle launch......today

[voodoo cheesecake]

I remember when a television was wheeled my third grade classroom for the first shuttle launch. And now you'd be hard pressed to find a third grader who knows what a space shuttle is, let alone know where Cape Canaveral is or even what it's famous for. NASA has left a huge wake of technology that we all benefit from. Hey, maybe China will foot the bill or buy NASA out. We've sold them everything else, why not cash in on our infrastructure while we're at it. Anyone else want to vomit? The times they are a changin'

I actually saw the shuttle in the morning sky...

[Mysticalfruit]

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.

I love the Shuttle

[aarrieta]

I think it is the most amazing and marvelous piece of human engineering. Every time I watch a launch on tv I become amazed once more time. I live in Argentina and I am trying to save money to be able to see a launch before the end :S Hope to get the money and go to enjoy it. If someone want to send me tickets... :D

Re:I love the Shuttle

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it is the most amazing and marvelous piece of human engineering. Every time I watch a launch on tv I become amazed once more time.
I live in Argentina and I am trying to save money to be able to see a launch before the end :S
Hope to get the money and go to enjoy it.
If someone want to send me tickets... :D

What is your airport of choice ?

Re:I love the Shuttle

[aarrieta]

Miami or Orlando (from Buenos Aires) :-)

Wrong

[dreamchaser]

The ISS uses thrust to adjust it's orbit already. It won't 'ruin' anything. The Zvezda module already has two main engines used for orbital adjustments.

The station loses speed continuously due to atmospheric drag (yes there is still a tenuous atmosphere up there). Using thrusters is part of it's existence.

You sir have just won /.

[elrous0]

Wow, I've never seen a post that referred to Germany as a "proper civilized government" and then referred to the Nazis two sentences later. That should get you some kind of /. award. That goes beyond a mere Godwin Rule situation into some kind of super-Godwin rule (maybe meta-Godwin). It could well tear a hole in space-time.

Read and learn Grasshopper.

[DerekLyons]

The ISS uses thrust to adjust it's orbit already. It won't 'ruin' anything. The Zvezda module already has two main engines used for orbital adjustments.

Those thrusters operate for short periods of time at great intervals. Considerable effort is expended to set up the schedule such that usage of those thrusters, docking and undocking visiting ships, station attitude changes and other such events occur in clusters with lengthy intervals between them in order to provide the maximum time of 'uncontaminated' micro gee. (There's even a vibration isolation system on some experimental racks to minimize disturbance in between those events for experiments that require an even higher level of micro gee.)
 
So yes, continuous usage of an ion thruster will ruin the micro gee environment, and yes this will be a great disruption to experiments onboard.

Re:Read and learn Grasshopper.

[dreamchaser]

Only nobody said anything about continuous thrust, just using thrust to move it to a higher orbit.

Re:Read and learn Grasshopper.

[Anonymous Coward]

> So yes, continuous usage of an ion thruster will ruin the micro gee environment, and yes
> this will be a great disruption to experiments onboard.

How would an ion thruster that is carefully counterbalancing the braking force of atmospheric friction ruin the Micro-G environment? With the atmospheric braking force cancelled out the station should be able to stay nicely in orbit and provide a rather stable Micro-G environment.

Re:Read and learn Grasshopper.

[Chris Gunn]

> So yes, continuous usage of an ion thruster will ruin the micro gee environment, and yes > this will be a great disruption to experiments onboard.

How would an ion thruster that is carefully counterbalancing the braking force of atmospheric friction ruin the Micro-G environment? With the atmospheric braking force cancelled out the station should be able to stay nicely in orbit and provide a rather stable Micro-G environment.

Yes, that's what I would have said. I see you are currently modded 0. Funny thing, that's what I always get when I post ;-)

Extended?

[clint999]

Am I the only one that is completely confused?

Not quite correct, read and learn Grasshopper.

[DerekLyons]

Only nobody said anything about continuous thrust, just using thrust to move it to a higher orbit.

The original poster specified an ion engine, which must operate continuously or nearly so in order to have any significant effect on the station's orbit.
 
Now, you could use normal thrusters (preferably from an external source to conserve Zvezda's fuel) to raise the orbit, but you cannot raise it significantly without affecting the ability of other servicing craft (Soyuz, Progress, ATV, HTV, Dragon) to utilize their full design capacity. (The higher the orbit, the lower the delivery capacity.) You can't raise it high enough to significantly reduce atmospheric drag without getting into the region where those craft, at best, no longer have a useful cargo capacity or may not be able to reach it at all.

NASA TV

[MavEtJu]

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 :-)

Did not know there was even a shuttle launch today

[axl917]

I still recall fondly the days when all (3!) TV stations would cut to live shuttle takeoff coverage.

The wondrous has become the routine.

godspeed

[MrKaos]

Hope it all goes well