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After Discovery's Launch, What's Left For the Shuttle?
coondoggie writes "NASA space shuttle Discovery rocketed into orbit this morning and, despite some communications problems, is slated to dock with the International Space Station in the wee hours of Wednesday, April 7. After this mission NASA has only three shuttles scheduled to launch, though speculation persists that the program may be extended. NetworkWorld has a roundup of what the last Shuttle missions consist of and what happens next."
After's Discovery's Launch, What's Left For the Shuttle?
My guess is that the shuttle is probably going to go look for its precious's
(sorry.... couldn't resist)
I say don't drink and drive, you might spill your drink. Before you get behind the wheel just stop and think.
Ebay?
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
It will.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
How many iPads do you think they brought up?
So after 28 years, we don't have a replacement for the shuttle yet? In less than half the time, mankind went from sending metal orbs in orbit to landing a man on the moon. After 28 years in the US we can't even backport an older design and make a working manned spacecraft.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
What do you mean by "end"? It's about to be completed!
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Now that NASA wont be buying overpriced outdated computer hardware to repair the shuttle with, how's that gona effect the price of a hardened 386 on eBay?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
The last scheduled shuttle flight is also Discovery, so today's launch doesn't signify the end of anything.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-133
Billions of dollars of finely crafted hardware will just gather dust in a museum or rust in an outside rocket yard. Its what happened to perfectly functional Apollo hardware, its what will happen to the shuttles.
As far as I can tell, there are two more scheduled launches - in July (Endeavour - STS 134) and September (Discovery - STS 133), both from Florida. I'm thinking of taking a road trip in the Summer in part to see the July launch. Does anyone here know how easy or hard it is to get tickets to see launches, and whether it's worth the trip?
Shoot, I didn't count the May launch of STS 132 (Altantis). The original question stands, though.
- OP
We'll navel-gaze about how great it is that we finally put the 'space cowboys' out of business and then begin trying to figure out which greedy corporation is responsible for 'killing' 'children' when their parents health plan ceases to cover them at 26.
It's China's planet now.
It was also that medicare exploded during the early 1970s. Entitlements exploded, and the cost of the war exploded, and the price of oil exploded when the USA devalued its currency and dropped the gold standard.
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Although the Dems were able to muster votes to get their health care stuff through despite bitter republican opposition, they will ultimately, on lesser issues, talk turkey. Florida and Alabama will get to keep flying the Shuttle with some contracts for extending it, in exchange for support on any of the things Obama wants but needs the center-right in both parties on. For example, Obama might want an emissions deal, and, while, you would think Republicans would oppose it, Republicans are also heavy in the states that could benefit from some sort of missions for the shuttle to save the earth as part of the package that would also benefit GOP states. Sessions, for example, could be bought on some deal for NASA in exchange for a deal to spin off GM so he can protect the Toyota plants in his state. Florida could be bought off for any number of things.
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I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.
Dell said that about Apple, and when Apple passed Dell in market cap, Steve Jobs very famously sent out an email to the entire Apple team saying "Hah hah, we beat you Dell. Should Dell be shut down and given back to the shareholders..."
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The continued and accelerated decline of the USA into it's new status as a second rate state, albeit one whose military can still kick some ass. This of course is only true if China doesn't call in it's notes. If that happens we don't pass GO definitely don't collect $200.00 and slide straight into the third world.
The summary says it right there: Three shuttle missions. Unless they're talking about how they only have the atlantis, discovery, and endeavour. If that's the case, then "After this mission NASA has only three shuttles scheduled to launch" needs to be changed to "After [Columbia's destruction] NASA has only three shuttles scheduled to launch".
This has been the case since what, 2003?
On May 25, 1961 John F. Kennedy said the following:
"IF we are to win the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny, the dramatic achievements in space which occurred in recent weeks should have made clear to us all, as did the Sputnik in 1957, the impact of this adventure on the minds of men everywhere, who are attempting to make a determination of which road they should take. Since early in my term, our efforts in space have been under review. With the advice of the Vice President, who is Chairman of the National Space Council, we have examined where we are strong and where we are not. Now it is time to take longer strides--time for a great new American enterprise--time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on Earth.
I believe we possess all the resources and talents necessary. But the facts of the matter are that we have never made the national decisions or marshaled the national resources required for such leadership. We have never specified long-range goals on an urgent time schedule, or managed our resources and our time so as to insure their fulfillment."
On July 16, 1969 Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin A. "Buzz" Aldrin landed on the moon.
When the Space Shuttle program ends there will be no US based manned space flight solutions for at least five years and possibly fifteen years. During that time all US manned space flights will be outsourced to Russia, China and possibly India at a cost far exceeding the current cost of the Space Shuttle.
On a personal note, I live close enough to see all of the Space Shuttle launches from my front yard and watched a early morning launch on the way back from my honeymoon in 1986.
I'm just glad that John F. Kennedy is dead.
The iPad = feminine hygiene pad joke was lame and childish when it started, now it's just pathetic. Just like the childish jokes about the Nintendo Wii.
What if I combine them?!?
I'm perfectly content to see the shuttle program end. Now that the space station is complete, the shuttle no longer has a purpose. A much smaller craft would be just fine to ferry people to the space station service the occasional space telescope. Can't say I really see much point in the manned space program at all, but as long as we have a $50 billion space station we might as well have a few folks keep the lights on. Its only justification was science and much of that was pretty thin. Mostly it was an end of the cold war political project to get countries to work together and it did OK at that. Its the rovers that have been getting the science and exploration done ... for so much less money.
Just because one dumbass president kept saying 'nucular' doesn't make it a real word.
Jimmy Carter used to consistently say "nucular" when he was president. Is that who you're talking about? I ask because he was, by all accounts, considered to be rather intelligent.
#DeleteChrome
It's interesting stuff http://duiattorneyorangecountyca.com/
It's amazing to think there could really be only three more space shuttle missions before the retirement of all the orbiter fleet. The current plan is to sell the orbiters to museums as soon as possible.
The United States is suspending manned spaceflight.
I wish that the final shuttle missions would be flown by the extended duration orbiter, Endeavor. I wish that the missions could be extended to even longer or that there were a plan in place to refit and refly the shuttles. But there is no plan to keep flying much less a plan to keep the shuttles flying.
True, the iPad probably was the last missing piece.
Discovery's landing, I should hope!
One of the problems with the shuttle is that it is too big and expensive to launch - due to requirements from DoD.
What was under development during the 70's were a lot of smaller alternatives - small shuttles for personnel etc.
There are advantages with having a shuttle - it allows for a more controlled landing, which means that you can revise flight path and landing place to some extent. And with a new generation there is room for using better/lighter materials. In design of a new shuttle it may even be possible to design it so it can be able to use major commercial landing strips in case it's necessary.
A capsule also has some merits - it is a simple object that is reliable. Unfortunately the landing is less precise. You can land a capsule on ground, but landing on water is preferred. However that also means that you need an extensive operation for retrieving the capsule.
And I suspect that the astronauts involved would really like to be in control of the vehicle as much as possible.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I think the GP is referring to George Bush Junior, who also pronounced it 'nucular' on several occasions
People, what a bunch of bastards
ill tell you whats left for the shuttle. to get out of the way of the development of a real reusable launch system, thats not engineered to such fine tolerances that it needs to be rebuilt after every damn flight, ending up costing more than a expendable launch system. also, to gather dust in the national air and space museum. as a warning from history.
whoosh!
And a Nuclear/nucular engineer at that.
It's been PR game too long. As article says, usability of program is limited, as was (IMHO) usability of Apolo before it.
After so many people walking on Moon, is it illogical to expect, for example, moon landing and launching to be something we know as we know to operate space station? Or, after human beings passed through heavy radiation not once, but many times, why don't we do it more often these days?
If our space tehnology was so advanced FORTY yrs ago, why we don't see manned missions going further than low earth orbit?
Had we, as humanity, gained anything from Apollo program? Excepts some moon rocks, of course.
http://opencm3.net, http://www.nongnu.org/gm2/
I'm amazed that they've missed the fact that the July flight of Endeavour is due to carry the $2B particle physics experiment, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), to the ISS.
Spearheaded by Nobel-prize winner, Sam Ting, and built and funded largely outside the normal peer review process, AMS is one of the most significant physics experiments of recent years, but as much for political and sociological reasons as scientific. If nothing else, without AMS and its friends in high places, there would only two shuttle flights left: this one was added by Bush and ratified by Obama completely over the head of NASA's normal process.
That all said, AMS recently moved from testing at CERN in Switzerland to ESA's ESTEC in the Netherlands for electromagnetic and thermal-vacuum testing, and is on a really (really) tight timeline to get to KSC in time for the July launch. There are good reasons to suspect that that flight will be delayed into August and perhaps even moved later in the year behind Discovery's last flight.
I was on a VIP trip to KSC very recently and was thrilled to be shown around the Orbiter Processing Facility where both Endeavour and Atlantis are be prepared for their last flights at present, while Discovery was out on the pad. Very special for a space geek to be literally inches from all of those tiles on the underside of Endeavour and (sorry NASA :-) to have actually sneaked a touch of the undercarriage.
Also deeply, deeply sad to think that this will all be over very soon: the shuttle programme has been an inspiration all the way back to the drop tests of the Enterprise back in 1977, even in the darkest hours. While I understand all the technical and financial arguments for stopping it now, psychologically it seems crazy to do so, particularly in the absence of any successor. End of an era. There were moments when I was pretty choked up on that OPF visit, I have to admit.
The Discovery? A communications failure? I've seen the movie and know what happens next....I would highly recommend NOT going out to repair the antenna...there might be a problem with the pod bay doors....
Re-entry?
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
I would say set a course for the second star on the right and straight on till morning!
They are only mid-way through their structural life. However it costs a fortune to refurbish them for each mission.
Note that B-52 bombers have been used for 55 years and likely for at least 75 years. there are several cold-war era planes that have passed the half-century mark.
Just like old tanks, train cars, and even some jumbo jets, the old shuttles should be sold off to be local tourist attractions. Convert the cargo bay into a couple of hotel rooms, or make one into a restaurant for "out of this world cuisine"!
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
I thought this would be a good place to post this for anyone interested.
Open Space Movement
It's basically a movement to collaborate all related and unrelated development environments toward human space exploration.
No, they're not talking about how many orbiters they have left. They're talking about how many missions. After this one will be the "final mission" for each orbiter: Atlantis retires in May. Endeavour retires in July, and Discovery retires in September.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
whoosh!
Indeed...
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hey can vote as much as they like, extension in any sensible use of the word is impossible.
The key word is sensible. Regardless of political party, rest assured that our government is anything but.
This is my sig.