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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."
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.
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
They started taking bids from museums a year or two ago, and closed the bidding last month. Currently marked down to the bargain-basement price of $28 million each, including shipping, no quantity discounts.
Or we could keep flying them, at excruciating cost, until every last one blows itself up, leaving nothing for future generations to remember a whole era of spaceflight by. The only reason the hardware cost so many billions of dollars is because so many man-hours went into retrofitting and repairing it to actually work. Face it, the only way to not have this problem is to take control of space travel away from politicians.
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.
This is my sig.
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.
We go down, they go down...
But remember, the bigger you are, the harder the fall. How would the average Chinese peasant's life change in some form of global economic collapse? He would be on the verge of starvation. But then again, he's on the verge of starvation today anyway. Now how is your average US suburbanite going to take starvation...?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Sunk cost, go read up on it.
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.
You can buy tickets to see the launch from the NASA causeway, which is the closest publicly-accessible viewing site. See http://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/space-shuttle-launch-viewing-tickets.aspx. For the previous couple of launches, these sold out in minutes. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/view/view_shuttle.html lists some off-site viewing locations.
Personally, I think it's totally worth it.
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....
A+++, fast shipment! Would buy again
Re-entry?
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