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Shuttle Makes Rare Night Landing

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the hit-the-brakes dept.

goG writes "After over 200 orbits around the Earth, space shuttle Endeavour landed safely in Florida on Sunday, ending a 14-day mission to the International Space Station. NASA pressed ahead with the Sunday night landing even though poor weather on both coasts threatened any touchdown attempt. Unusually, rain clouds were expected at both Edwards Air Force base in California and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The return marked just the 23rd time the space shuttle has landed at night, out of 130 flights."

57 comments

  1. So...about one in five? by Joce640k · · Score: 5, Insightful

    One in five isn't terribly rare...

    --
    No sig today...
    1. Re:So...about one in five? by AP31R0N · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yup, it's awfully rare. 1 in 6 would be horribly rare. *Terribly* rare is 1 in 7.

      Negative rarity scale:
      4 - Icky
      5 - Awful
      6 - Horrible
      7 - Terrible
      8 - Disgusting

      --
      Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
    2. Re:So...about one in five? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i do believe you need to check your math here :/

    3. Re:So...about one in five? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      23 * 5 = 125 which is damn near 128 (minus 1 for the 'C' shuttles). Closer than say 1/6 or 1/4.

    4. Re:So...about one in five? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      23/130=0.1769 which is closer to 1/6 (delta 0.010) than to 1/5 (delta 0.023)

    5. Re:So...about one in five? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1/5 is damn near 1/6 as well. And neither would qualify as "rare" in my opinion.

    6. Re:So...about one in five? by quenda · · Score: 2, Funny

      The actual ratio depends on whether you are counting flights, or just landings.

  2. Scared the piss out of me, too. by geminidomino · · Score: 4, Funny

    Apparently it came in from West to East, because the boom made me jump out of my chair and scared my poor cats witless.

    They should warn a guy. :)

    1. Re:Scared the piss out of me, too. by realsilly · · Score: 1

      They did warn people who watch the news and actually follow the shuttle program on. Besides if you live here, how could you not know about it?

      The sound of it is just as wonderful as the sound of the shuttle leaving the earth to orbit this planet. It makes a person pretty proud to hear that sound. It means our astronauts are almost home safe and sound.

      --
      Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
    2. Re:Scared the piss out of me, too. by geminidomino · · Score: 1

      I've found that watching the news leads to increased alcohol consumption. Besides, even if I *had* known it was coming, when one is dozing in a computer chair, it's jarring. :)

    3. Re:Scared the piss out of me, too. by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Apparently it came in from West to East,

      I'd be surprised if it ever came in from any other direction...

      --
      Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
    4. Re:Scared the piss out of me, too. by geminidomino · · Score: 1

      Apparently it came in from West to East,

      I'd be surprised if it ever came in from any other direction...

      I dunno why you were modded 'funny', because post-coffee thought seems to make sense.

    5. Re:Scared the piss out of me, too. by DarthBart · · Score: 3, Informative

      Here's the landing track:

      http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/428601main_KSC217_mid_nooa.gif

      Didn't *scare* me, just caught me unaware..."BOOOM! Hey..thunder? Nowait, shuttle!". I just moved to Florida, so the shuttle experiences are new (I drug my ass out of bed at 0400 2 weeks ago to see the sky light up from the night launch).

    6. Re:Scared the piss out of me, too. by cstdenis · · Score: 3, Funny

      They should warn a guy. :)

      They did. Unfortunately, you were not that guy.

      --
      1984 was not supposed to be an instruction manual.
    7. Re:Scared the piss out of me, too. by geminidomino · · Score: 1

      Yep. Right over my town.

      Scared me because my not-all-that-healthy mom was in the house. I thought she took a fall.

      Amusingly, she thought the same thing about me.

  3. Enjoy 'em while you can, folks by Spencerian · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    As many of you know, the 2011 U.S. Budget has killed all funding for the Constellation program, the replacement vehicles for the STS program.

    The president wants to fund private enterprise to perform launches to low-Earth orbit.

    Nice job, Mr. President. The only close-to-working manned flight capability is Virgin Galactic's SpaceShip Two. While this is an awesome setup, it's designed for recreational suborbital flights only.

    Thanks, President Obama. It's forward to the past for us with a 1961 launch ability, where either we stick out our thumbs (towels not included) for a Soyuz lift, or we don't get to go to the multi-billion space station that we mostly own--or anywhere for that matter.

    And let's not worry about the big frickin' rocks that occasionally could pummel us, and the space tech needed to even consider an option to stop that.

    STS may have its warts, but it works. Fund one damned vehicle for 2 trips a year until private industry catches up. Is that so hard?

    --
    Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
    1. Re:Enjoy 'em while you can, folks by rotide · · Score: 1

      Just a guess here, I'm no expert on the subject, but with federal funding, I'm sure the for _profit_ outfits might find reason to invest more into R&D.

      Hang a big suitcase full of money in front of a business with the capability of making what you want and I can guarantee you if there is enough in that case, they will give you what you want.

    2. Re:Enjoy 'em while you can, folks by Spencerian · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I appreciate the pull of private industry to space.

      But big suitcases of money from the government is not real cash, and you know it. Business works truly on real dollars from real funding. What the government calls funding, I call "venture capital."

      And we all know what's happened before when people make bright ideas out of nothing from a business standpoint: The 2001 "dotcom" stock crash happened for a reason.

      The point I'm making is to keep a space presence in place until it's replacement shows up. I almost don't care who makes it, as long as it's affordable and reliable and not the Russians (good space people in their own right, but we shouldn't be able to go to space on their behalf).

      No president has ever cut the jugular to the space program like this. Some might argue that it's time had come. But, in so many ways, the current president lacks critical vision that risks the sight of what good comes from investing in the future, rather than merely concentrating on the (equally important) social issues. If the president had vision, he'd realize that the offshoots of the space program (such as mobile computers) have helped the poor as a result become less poor.

      --
      Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
    3. Re:Enjoy 'em while you can, folks by rotide · · Score: 2, Insightful

      With all due respect, your anti-Obama rhetoric is making your political stance quite obvious and I wonder if part of your hatred of the move to private industry is clouded.

      The fact of the matter is we do have backups in place right now. Commercial businesses are already launching satellites, let alone other nations. So if we need a satellite launched, we have options.

      On the idea of "And let's not worry about the big frickin' rocks that occasionally could pummel us, and the space tech needed to even consider an option to stop that.", I'm quite certain that all we would need to do is get the top competitors into a room (read: people that have skill launching things) and tell them that whoever saves the earth gets 3 Billion dollars, we'll see some results.

      Personally, what I find most odd about your posts is that you seem to hold NASA up on a pedestal. Really, they've killed a bunch of astronauts and they do so at a huge, HUGE, cost to the public. Yes, they have been moderately successful over the years, but beyond building a station that they seem content to decommission asap and landing men on the moon decades ago, they really haven't done anything private enterprise isn't doing already. Well, besides sending humans up to turn screws on ailing satellites.

    4. Re:Enjoy 'em while you can, folks by llvllatrix · · Score: 1

      From what I understand (and I am not too well informed on the subject), the counter argument is; the cost is too great to justify the benefits. The priority now is to restore the economy so that long term investments like these become possible once again. Increasing the demand by supporting the economy and funding private companies to make manned space travel economically viable will likely get you into space faster than waiting for NASA to do it.

    5. Re:Enjoy 'em while you can, folks by maxume · · Score: 1

      "Hilarious boondoggle ends. Cuts off access to sister boondoggle."

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    6. Re:Enjoy 'em while you can, folks by idji · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Obama is right. He stopped Nasa wasting it's time/money/effort/brains playing space-trucker (let private business do that - it should NOT be Nasa's job to do mundane Wells Fargo or Fedex chores) and get back to doing serious innovation - like ion drives and other techs that are gonna get us ultimately to Mars, Jupiter and Alpha Centauri - because private enterprise is not ready for that yet.
      Are you proud of Nasa playing Fedex, which the Russians, Indians, Chinese, or SpaceX could also do sooner or later, or are you proud that it got from nowhere to the moon in 9 years?
      It's like software or many other things. Versions 1 and 2 are highly innovative and lots happens. Then your software becomes business critical to customers and innovation stagnates, new releases only contain fixes or minor changes - goal is only to milk it for all it's worth. Obama is cutting out the stagnation and getting them back to the cutting edge.

    7. Re:Enjoy 'em while you can, folks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Hate to be the one to tell you, but it's not like Constellation was going to be flying any time soon (2017-2018 based on latest estimates). SpaceX is likely to be flying sooner than that, same with an Orion-lite on a EELV, and at a cost substantally less than the 40 billion dollars that Ares-1 was going to cost. Plus I'm not sure exactly how they managed to do it, but the proposed replacement was going to cost even more than the Shuttle to operate, while doing substantially less.

      BTW Constellation (and Orion) was as much a replacement for STS as a Yugo is for a Ferrari.

      The Space Shuttle is done, the decision to wind down the program was made years ago and there are only so many long lead items such as external tanks left. It would take years (and billions) to ramp the production lines back up. Even one of the pads at Kennedy can no longer support Shuttle launches (it was modified for Ares-1X). As much as I love the Shuttle, it is too little too late to save her

    8. Re:Enjoy 'em while you can, folks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      It would have ended before 2011 anyway, and not come back for a decade. Well, unless you believe NASA would finish on time, which every objective review said they wouldn't.

      Private spaceflight will be ready before constellation would have been.

    9. Re:Enjoy 'em while you can, folks by Spencerian · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      I'm not anti-Obama. I'm anti-idiot. I'm black, and even *I* know he's an idiot for cutting the program in this way.

      NASA is on my pedestal because people with short-sighted visions have given us *only* NASA to put there. Plenty of other presidents (both GOP and Democrat) could've started a stronger private industry initiative decades ago with a long-term vision of private space launches. They haven't.

      If someone had the vision to push private industry harder *and* phase out NASA's sole ability to lift humans into space safely by now, I'd be all for that. So while Obama's had the cohones to push for privatized space travel, his approach is a baby-with-the-bathwater approach that leaves us in a much weaker position than having STS in place, even in its Apollo-era interim from 1975 to 1981.

      --
      Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
    10. Re:Enjoy 'em while you can, folks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My name is NASA, and even *I* know there is an argument for privatizing US space flight. Also, my last name is Idiot, and even *I* know that calling a clearly intelligent person an idiot just for disagreeing with you is childish.

    11. Re:Enjoy 'em while you can, folks by sarahbau · · Score: 3, Interesting

      SpaceX will have its Dragon module docking with the ISS 4 years before Ares I/Orion's first test flight, and manned missions 2-3 years before Orion. While I agree that it's bad for NASA to stop manned spaceflight before the replacement is available, THAT part was not Obama's plan. Bush decided that in 2004. Obama just wants to cancel the Constellation program, which seems like it's already behind what commercial systems like SpaceX have available.

    12. Re:Enjoy 'em while you can, folks by Golddess · · Score: 1

      $60 per person per year is a "huge, HUGE cost to the public"?

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States

      Taking from the 2010 proposed budget and the 2010 population estimate, $18,700 million / 308.732 million = $60.57.

      --
      "I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
    13. Re:Enjoy 'em while you can, folks by kestasjk · · Score: 1

      A black guy that doesn't like Obama?! Is that even possible? Good grief that gives you a lot of credibility!

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      // MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
    14. Re:Enjoy 'em while you can, folks by Usually+Unlucky+ · · Score: 2, Funny

      Not only has the Ares 1 already had it first test flight. I am here saying, on record, that the Dragon will not fly until at least 2020, if ever.

      SpaceX is a joke of a company.

      Do you know how simple the falcon 1 is? And they only have a 2/5 record with it. While most modern rocket systems, which have far greater abilities, designed in the last 20 years have perfect records.

      The Flacon 9 is much more complex, SpaceX will take a decade to get it right.

      Asking SpaceX to get a man to LEO is like asking the Wright Brothers to fly you across the Atlantic.

      --
      -
    15. Re:Enjoy 'em while you can, folks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      GM ummm good investment?

    16. Re:Enjoy 'em while you can, folks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes we can!

    17. Re:Enjoy 'em while you can, folks by sarahbau · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The Ares 1 has not had its first test flight. The 1-X had a test flight, which was just the first stage. They don't plan on a full Ares 1 test flight until 2014. Pretty much every modern rocket is based on earlier models which didn't have perfect records. Falcon 1 was designed from the ground up. It would have been a near miracle for the first couple flights to not have problems.

    18. Re:Enjoy 'em while you can, folks by necro81 · · Score: 1

      Fund one damned vehicle for 2 trips a year until private industry catches up. Is that so hard?

      Yes, it is damned hard. Well, perhaps not hard, but really, really expensive. In order to have just one or two flights per years you basically need to have the same infrastructure that you would have for a dozen flights per year. that infrastructure isn't just the facilities, it's also the thousands of people that build, maintain, and operate the shuttles and their components, the launch facility in Florida, mission control in Houston, alternate or emergency landing sites in California and Africa, and a global communications network. These are not trivial or cheap things, and you need it all to do even a single shuttle launch. Since Columbia, they need to have a flight-ready backup shuttle that can be launched in short order.

      And what would you do with this infrastructure the rest of the time? It's pretty specialized, and can't be used for much else except launching shuttles. In order for it to be ready, it needs to be funded and running all the time. This totals a couple billion dollars per year in operating expenses, plus hundreds of millions or billions of dollars per launch. You either have a full shuttle program or none at all. Because NASA's budget is finite and has been mostly stagnant for a long time, having a full shuttle program constrained the ability to do anything else in the realm of manned spaceflight.

    19. Re:Enjoy 'em while you can, folks by CompMD · · Score: 1

      "The fact of the matter is we do have backups in place right now. Commercial businesses are already launching satellites, let alone other nations. So if we need a satellite launched, we have options."

      There is no other space vehicle with the carrying capacity of the shuttle. There are satellites in orbit that couldn't have been placed there by any other spacecraft currently in existence, or under development.

      "Really, they've killed a bunch of astronauts and they do so at a huge, HUGE, cost to the public."

      The shuttle is considered a military aircraft. With 130 missions, less than a 2% failure rate is pretty good, not even counting the insane complexity of the vehicle systems.

      "...they really haven't done anything private enterprise isn't doing already. "

      Ranger, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Voyager, Mariner, SOHO, Spirit, Opportunity, Mars Global Surveyor, Cassini, Huygens...do I really need to go on? Where is private industry on landing stuff on the Moon, Venus, or Mars, or orbiting Saturn and Titan? Or even in sending a craft out of the solar system? What rock have you lived under your whole life?

    20. Re:Enjoy 'em while you can, folks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I bet you're the kind of guy who likes to shove a stick of butter up your asscrack daily. Right?

    21. Re:Enjoy 'em while you can, folks by msi · · Score: 1

      NASA is on my pedestal because people with short-sighted visions have given us *only* NASA to put there. Plenty of other presidents (both GOP and Democrat) could've started a stronger private industry initiative decades ago with a long-term vision of private space launches. They haven't.

      I don't understand, why should the government push private industry? If space launches are profitable private industry will provide if they are not private industry will not.

      Why is it bad to push private health insurance but good to incentivise private space launches?

  4. Spun out like a research monkey! by voodoo+cheesecake · · Score: 0

    FTA: Endeavor will have its final flight in July as the Obama administration has decided to cancel a planned follow-on program intended to return U.S. astronauts to the moon, due to cost concerns - Never went to the moon cover-up? Instead the US plans to develop technology for eventual human travel to Mars, and also ramp up space mission from the private sector. - Distract them with mars! With the shuttles' retirement, only the Russian and Chinese governments will have the ability to put people into orbit. - Are research monkeys still an option?

  5. tap lava pools? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    nice clean steam/heat vents everywhere (much cleaner than the increasing random eruptions). we'd be back to having an atmosphere before we realize ours is kaput? no money in it? may as well blow up then.

  6. could it be? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    part of the 'newclear' power those freaks have been ranting about for all these years?

    some of us would do almost anything to make them stop/delete themselves, no?

    gnu online dating; sheesh

  7. Night? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Landing at night ... Is this so we won't see the weird looking aliens debarking?

    1. Re:Night? by Jake+Griffin · · Score: 1

      What the heck would the aliens be "debarking," our dogs? Why do they care if our dogs make noise? I think you meant "disembarking"...

      --
      SIG FAULT: Post index out of bounds.
    2. Re:Night? by lorg · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Perhaps they are werewolf aliens that need to howl at the moon?

  8. Why manned flight? by MacAndrew · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Enjoy" is exactly it -- manned space flight is cool. The STS pictures are amazing. It is not cost effective. I want us (humans) to have a strong committent to space exploration, real science, and for thirty years have noticed that it is a rare scientist who will speak well of the Shuttle program. It has had some great successes, such as the HST repairs (I don't know how else those would have been feasible) but the more common story I've heard is that NASA would delay launches to try to force them to go on the Shuttle, and that funding for basic research probes, with which we have seen stunning successes, was eviscerated.

    So, before questioning the end of the multi-billion-dollar Shuttle program that killed two crews, be sure of what we really want next. Myself, I want to see the money spent, and spent efficiently. I'm happy enough if not a human but a robot boldly goes where no human|robot has gone before, and I suspect the robot will do a better job, cost one fifth as much, and happen twenty years sooner.

    1. Re:Why manned flight? by vlm · · Score: 4, Informative

      It has had some great successes, such as the HST repairs (I don't know how else those would have been feasible)

      No, that was a miserable financial failure, not a success. You probably have no idea of the staggering expense of a "reusable" vehicle like the shuttle.

      The HST was planned to cost $400M to build and launch. It ended up costing about $2500M because it takes a lot of expensive screwing around to launch on the shuttle. I don't know if the $2500M cost includes the $1500M cost of a shuttle launch.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope

      JWST is going to "cost" about $4500M, but that's a R and D jobs program not a production program. It could be made to cost anything between maybe $1000M and $100000000000000M depending on how many grants they want to farm out (empire building, etc). I also have no idea what they'll use for a launcher based on all the American launcher cancellations. Probably either a Space-X product, or hang the thumb out like a hitchhiker and hope the ESA will bail us out.

      Herschel cost about 1100M euros. I don't know if the 1100M euro cost includes the cost of a dirt cheap Ariane 5.

      An Ariane 5 only costs about 120M euro, or about one twelfth of a shuttle launch. Or, rephrased, you can launch 12 scopes on an Ariane for the cost of launching 1 scope on the shuttle. Or rephrased, a shuttle launch, with an empty payload bay, costs more than the entire Herschel program, but an Ariane launch is a pretty small line item on any scope launch.

      http://www.spaceandtech.com/spacedata/elvs/ariane5_specs.shtml

      A shuttle launch costs about $1500M

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle

      Generally speaking, "partially rebuilding" a space telescope costs about as much as launching a new scope on a launcher thats not a joke.

      A partially broken down scope seems like a waste, but if it would cost more to fix than to launch a new one... Of course, if we had a freaking assembly line of space telescopes, sort of like a place that Meade has for earthbound scopes, we could probably launch something like a HST or a Herschel for maybe $250M each, plus about $150M for an Ariane5 launch, which would otherwise only pay for about 1/4 of a shuttle repair mission.

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    2. Re:Why manned flight? by multi+io · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm happy enough if not a human but a robot boldly goes where no human|robot has gone before, and I suspect the robot will do a better job, cost one fifth as much, and happen twenty years sooner.

      Well, if history is any indication, it'll never happen without a manned space program. Nations that don't have a manned space program (e.g. the EU) also spend less on unmanned missions, and the greatest unmanned US missions were initiated and funded during the Apollo era, when spendings for manned space exploration were also the highest. Manned space exploration inspires the public. Even STS does. Without such a program, the giant funds for unmanned missions that are supposed to be freed because of all the saved money will never materialize.

    3. Re:Why manned flight? by MacAndrew · · Score: 1

      Actually I agree with you; I was just trying to be nice and cut our manned space flight friends some slack. :) They can be rather passionate. I maintain, however, that manned space flight is really cool. Just not worth it.

    4. Re:Why manned flight? by M1FCJ · · Score: 1

      I think the most successful Jupiter, Saturn and multiple Mars missions that have happened way after Apollo era (i.e., since 1990) would differ with your statistics (don't get me started about the unsung heroes of incredibly successful ESA and NASA missions to Venus). The only missions that was funded around cancellation of the Apollo era (early 1970s) were Voyagers and Vikings. Half of Apollo missions were cancelled right after Apollo 11.

  9. Spirit/Opportunity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    they really haven't done anything private enterprise isn't doing already

    Many NGOs with rovers on Mars?

  10. Bad weather? by BigBadBus · · Score: 1

    The shuttle was allowed to land despite the threat of bad weather? Whats the new motto at NASA; "Safety last"?

    --
    My web domain.
    1. Re:Bad weather? by vlm · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The shuttle was allowed to land despite the threat of bad weather? Whats the new motto at NASA; "Safety last"?

      The tiles are delicate, literally flying thru hail or rain could destroy them while they're red hot. That would be a shame if it happened on flight #1. That is no great loss if it happens on the last flight, or second to last, or whatever it is. Just put some bondo and spray paint on that dude before setting up the Smithsonian exhibit, or whatever.

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    2. Re:Bad weather? by BrokenHalo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The shuttle was allowed to land despite the threat of bad weather?

      Maybe they wanted to be back in time for tea.

    3. Re:Bad weather? by aqk · · Score: 0

      Yeah, what's a shuttle worth these days?
      (canonical question)

      --

      .
      - aqk
      F U /. illiterates.
  11. A decade without US space launches by peter303 · · Score: 1

    With the Ares program falling behind schedule and Obama whittling away at funds, I fear this to be the case. This doesnt even take the Tea Party in account which considers federal space program the #1 wasteful program to eliminate. Private industry might eventually do manned orbital, but not in a long while.

    1. Re:A decade without US space launches by Cassius+Corodes · · Score: 1

      Just wait till China gets to the moon - then the US will remember there was something important it forgot in space :D

      --
      Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
  12. Mark? by Cur8or · · Score: 0

    I thought he was retiring from Canonical?

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    Winkey shortcut mapping for 64bit windows. WinKeyPlus