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NASA Readies Discovery Shuttle For Final Flight

Posted by samzenpus on from the fare-thee-well dept.

gabbo529 writes "After 38 trips, 352 days in orbit and more than 5,600 trips around the Earth, the space shuttle Discovery is preparing for its final launch. Since its creation, it has flown to orbit more than any other craft. It has set a number of precedents including first craft to feature a female shuttle pilot and female shuttle commander (Eileen Collins), the first African American spacewalker (Bernard Harris) and the first sitting member of congress to fly in space (Jake Garn). In its final foray into space, the Discovery will set another precedent when it flies the first humanoid robot to fly in space, Robonaut2."

3 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Can I have it now you are finished with it? by h4rr4r · · Score: 4, Informative

    The shuttles are not reusable in any real cost saving sense. They have to have many tiles replaced, the main engines replaced, and numerous other little odds and ends. The SRBs are one of the shuttles main failings, SRBs are cheap but notice that no one else uses them for a man rated launcher.

    The Shuttle will not find a buyer, it is not cost effective and never was.

  2. Re:Still unclear what will replace the shuttle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Working for a DoD contractor that did work for Orion, I can say for certain it was cancelled (even if they do not call it that). There's no more work being done for a very critical portion of the capsule right now that our company was responsible for, and that stuff is now sitting in the corner of the lab, the responsible engineers are off working on other things.

    The two words that are a death knell for any project are: "Stop Work"

    Gotta post AC, simply because I cannot speak for my company, but I have eyes and can plainly see what is going (or not going) on.

  3. Re:Can I have it now you are finished with it? by hcdejong · · Score: 4, Informative

    I think the figures you have for the Shuttle are low. Endeavor cost $ 1.7B to build from spare components. That does not include the cost to acquire those components, and it assumes the design has been paid for already.

    From Wikipedia: Roger Pielke has estimated that the Space Shuttle program has cost about US$170 billion (2008 dollars) through early 2008. This works out to an average cost per flight of about US$1.5 billion.