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Discovery's Final Launch Successful

Posted by Soulskill on from the make-it-count dept.

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.

2 of 149 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Yeah, they successfully wasted $700 million by circletimessquare · · Score: 4, Insightful

    you might have noticed that 500 years ago some nations in europe spent a lot of money sending boats in the wrong direction, towards the ends of the earth

    complete waste of money, right?

    it should be a crime to display such ignorant levels of a lack of an imagination, like you do

    nothing worth going into space for, right?

    nothing worth sending perfectly good boats over the ends of the earth for, right?

    what a pinhead

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  2. Inspirational by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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".