Endeavour Launch Now Slated For Monday

For anyone camping in Florida through the series of delays in the shuttle Endeavour's launch, it may be nearly time to get out the earplugs and champagne: though there's a fair chance of yet another weather delay, for now the shuttle's final launch is slated for tomorrow. If you're thinking of driving in to catch a glimpse, good news — a Monday launch may mean a smaller crowd.

Comments

Godspeed, Endeavour.

[nbvb]

Godspeed, Endeavour. It's a real shame to retire these workhorses. Are they expensive? Yes. Are they exactly what was envisioned in the 70's? No. But, so what? They're still incredible machines that do things mankind has NEVER been able to do before.

The ISS? Wouldn't be possible without the Shuttle.
Hubble? Impossible without Shuttle.

They're workhorses, and it's a damned shame that we, as Americans, have gotten ourselves into such a political quagmire that we can't figure out how to keep man in space. Depressing.

Re:Godspeed, Endeavour.

[khallow]

Godspeed, Endeavour. It's a real shame to retire these workhorses. Are they expensive? Yes. Are they exactly what was envisioned in the 70's? No. But, so what? They're still incredible machines that do things mankind has NEVER been able to do before.

"But so what?" Two words: "opportunity cost." Let's keep in mind that everything we could have done with the Shuttle, we did by the time of the Challenger accident. The US developed a reusable launch vehicle and it used it. Hubble and the ISS did not require the Shuttle.

Hubble due to its mirror, required a vehicle with the fairing size of the Shuttle, but repairing it was unnecessary. We could have used the funding for Hubble repairs to instead make and launch more space telescopes.

The ISS, after being shrunk slightly in width, could have been launched on the Titan IV or the Delta IV Heavy. We could have also launched a much smaller Mir-sized space station for a small fraction of the cost of the ISS (no international "coopoeration") and have gotten most of the functionality of the ISS.

Finally, with the money we would have saved by discontinuing the Shuttle way back when (say 1990), we could have manned missions beyond LEO, research into low gravity (not zero gravity) effects, ISRU research on the Moon or Mars, etc. You know, things that actually advance our knowledge of and presence in space and on other worlds.

They're workhorses, and it's a damned shame that we, as Americans, have gotten ourselves into such a political quagmire that we can't figure out how to keep man in space. Depressing.

You ought to check out SpaceX's activities then. The Falcon Heavy, for example, is a game changer. If they can hit their price targets, they'll be launching payload for about a factor of 20 to 50 less than what the Shuttle can do and they can launch more mass than a Shuttle could launch.

Re:Godspeed, Endeavour.

[memyselfandeye]

Melodramatic? Can't think of anything more Melodramatic than stating rational adults think the shuttle program was and is a waste, and anyone who says different are bipolar misfits who cut themselves. How's this for melodramatic.

Shuttle Program...
Cost per year: $5 Billion
Total program cost: ~$175 Billion
Percent of annual Revenue: 0.1% - 0.75% over 35 years

Compare that to....
Cost of TARP: $300 Billion
Bush Stimulus: $172 Billion
Obama Stimulus: $862 Billion

Which one of those created jobs. Disregard your politics, ask yourself if it is more likely that the Shuttle program created more engineers and mechanics and pipe fitters and electricians and truck drivers and chemical mixers, than say TARP and its bankers.

Now for some other calculus. The space station was built so Russian scientists would have something to do other than build Nuclear bombs. I grew up in that world, and saw it fist hand as a teenager whose parents worked at White Sands. After the wall fell, one of those Russian scientists lived with us, and instead of building bombs and rockets, he built rockets and space stations.

Somehow our calculus assumes the current NASA engineers are just going to flip burgers and mow lawns. The disassumes that some of them may move to China, or elsewhere, and build rockets and, possibly, bombs... since those nations have no desire to build space stations.

Re:Godspeed, Endeavour.

[zippthorne]

Yeah, so? Mostly they're all there just lying in wait for the order to kill millions of other people. They're not really doing anything of great utility to the human race beyond being a deterrent to one group of humans murdering a specific other group of humans.

ISS without the Shuttle

[Usually Unlucky]

If you want to launch station segments by themselves like the Russians do the segments become more expensive, smaller, and less capable because each segment has to be its own spaceship complete with guidance, altitude and attitude control, and docking capability.

The shuttle allowed for the segments to be large, cheep, and uncomplicated. Plus the entire integrated truss system witch is quite literally the backbone of the station could not have happened without the shuttle. You would have to get your power from smaller solar arrays, which would greatly complicate the power system. Same problem with the radiators.

The shuttle did a great job with the ISS,

To bad the ISS hasn't done a great job for science or exploration. It has just been a large overpriced diplomacy tool, mostly used to keep the Russian aerospace industry alive after the collapse so they wouldn't wonder off and wind up in china or Iran.