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Discovery's Final Launch Successful
Phoghat writes "Overcoming a down-to-the-last-second problem, space shuttle Discovery made history yesterday, launching on its final mission to orbit. The most-traveled orbiter is carrying a crew of six astronauts and one human-like Robonaut, along with a new permanent storeroom and supplies for the International Space Station."
The launch itself went as planned; a few pieces of foam insulation broke free of the external fuel tank on the way up, but it's not expected to be a safety concern, and they're planning an inspection to make sure. NASA has videos of yesterday's launch and a Discovery retrospective, and the Atlantic has a great collection of pictures involving the shuttle. Mike Coats, pilot of Discovery's first mission in 1984, spoke in an interview about his connection to the orbiter. Discovery comes back to Earth on March 7th.
"Final Launch Successful"?
Even if it were unsuccessful, it still would have been Discovery's final launch.
Trolling is a art,
The delay in posting this story was the result of the editors staying up all night to review the footage for foam strikes.
Other sources rushed to judgment with yesterday's proclamations.
Yet another in a 30-year line of NASA PR flights. "Hey, look, we've got a ROBOT on this one!!"
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Do Endeavor and Atlantis also have one last turn,each or is that it?
Both.
Actually if you look at total deaths it is probably re-entry. There are multiple abort modes for the shuttle and conventional rockets that are survivable. Plus if you have an issue you do not have to launch.
As the old saying goes. Take off is optional landing is not.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I'm continually surprised by the number of people mourning the loss of the Space Shuttle as a major blow to space exploration considering if anything, the Shuttle program did more to kill space exploration than any other singular factor!
While I disagree with Michael Griffin's views on a lot of issues, the scathing paper he wrote in 2007 criticizing the merits of the Shuttle program should be required reading for both present and future NASA employees as it provides a substantial contribution to the case for why the Space Shuttle did more to kill our ability to explore space than any other factors did by wasting so much money, time, and resources away from the development of ELVs.
ELVs to this day remain a far more flexible, reliable and cost effective means of getting payloads into orbit and beyond than the Shuttle has ever been.
To be fair, the loss of both shuttles can be attributed a great deal to the culture shift at NASA, as there was a time when the organization prided itself on having the best engineers in the world, however all too often they have now been ignored in favor of the overly unrealistic views of scientists and management, the latter have shown a clear trend over the past several decades of ignoring safety concerns in favor of maintaining launch dates despite the inevitably fatal consequences of such an attitude.
More than one former NASA employee that I know has plans to hold a party during the launch of Atlantis' final flight in June (if funding for the mission goes through, if not, it will be at Endeavour's launch in April) not to commemorate the Shuttle program but rather to celebrate the future potential of Space Exploration when the Shuttle program finally dies!
I'm honest enough to admit I lie to myself.
Postponed 11 times, four months and 4 minutes. It was interesting to tour the NASA complex and see all the excited waiting watchers. For unclear reasons, last minute airfares werent available this week. I think it was due to people visiting Disney World during Presidents week and backlog from last weeks cancelations.
I watched it, not planning to, after a friend posted it on Facebook. I didn't even know it was happening at that point.
Then I watched the live video. And I was gobsmacked. Amazed. I didn't realise that human endeavour involved something travelling at 14,000 (fourteen thousand) miles an hour after 7 minutes in flight. I just didn't know quite how incredible it was.
I was sad that it was at night in the UK, because otherwise I wish that schools would stop so that children could watch this incredible achievement. Just amazing.
But where is the next achievement like this after the final shuttle launch after this? Shuttles are gone, Concorde is gone. What's going to inspire our children to reach past our current achievements? I worry we're become a society of "now, next minute" rather than "what we could be".