Space Shuttle Atlantis Launches On Final Flight

Space Shuttle Atlantis has just launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. STS-135 marks the final flight for the shuttle program, 30 years after Columbia touched the sky during STS-1. The mission summary (PDF) outlines STS-135's crew and event timeline. NASA's launch blog has been following the countdown all morning, and our own CmdrTaco has been tweeting live from on-site. NASA TV is also being streamed live. Meteorological reports for the launch looked doubtful at first, but a gap in the bad weather at just the right time allowed everything to proceed as planned. Atlantis successfully reached its preliminary orbit in what a NASA official called a "flawless" launch.

Comments

Godspeed Atlantis

[spidercoz]

So goes America's dominance in space.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Oh, NASA is shutting down?

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Anonymous Coward]

"Dominance in space"? The rest of the universe might argue about America ever having "dominated" it.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Anonymous Coward]

The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision.

from http://xkcd.com/893/

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[d3vi1]

And I've almost finished my 6h recording of NasaTV for this historical day for a total of 2.9GBytes. I wasn't alive to witness the first launch of the space shuttle, but I was alive to catch and save this one. I would also like to thank Apple for it's HTTP Live Streaming protocol. It takes only a few lines of Bash to dump the the complete 3Mbps MPEG Transport Stream (H.264+AVC) to the hard-drive. I want to be able to watch this again.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[c0mpliant]

So ends America's wasteful spending on a program that didn't live up to what was promised. Maybe now space exploration can start heading back on the right direction

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[d3vi1]

s/AVC/AAC/

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Animats]

One shot of the launch control center after the launch showed one guy quietly cleaning out his desk, putting his stuff in his backpack, and walking out.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Anonymous Coward]

So goes one of the biggest wastes of money America has spent in the space program. Seriously, shoulda been at least phased out starting 15 years ago. Very few other fields that still use 30+ year-old tech (more like 40 when you consider development time), half of which has catastrophically failed. Granted, thats a pretty low rate considering the number of launches and the technical difficulty of every launch... but still, time for something new. Especially when that time was ten years ago.

Maybe now commercial space flight will really take off (pun definitely intended) and we can see those tickets to the moon actually being fulfilled. Or not, but one can dream. Technology has advanced enough that its at least within the realm of possibility.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[faedle]

So ends America's wasteful spending on a program that didn't live up to what was promised.

I didn't hear the news.. we're pulling our troops from the Middle East conflicts?

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Anonymous Coward]

America is quickly becoming what used to be known as a third world nation. Our space program is now below the Russians and Chinese in terms of capability. We are selling our roads, power plants, ports and other basic infrastructure. So it goes.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Captain Splendid]

Might as well be.

Oh sure, they'll send satellites up, and we've all been promised Russian/Chinese/Japanese flights/space stations/moonbases.

And oh yeah, tons of private firms too!

But I'm not holding my breath. We, the human race, are pretty much done playing outside the gravity well.

If you remain one of these people who doesn't think today is depressing as fuck, I'd like some of what you're having.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[mswhippingboy]

Shutting down? Hardly. Aren't there exciting new research programs into how to turn shit and piss into delicacies? What could be more exciting?

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[geekoid]

Where are my mod points?

-1 flamebait.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[c0mpliant]

I was referring to the US Space Exploration budget. The United States DoD budget, farm subsidies, alternative energies budget and a handful of other massive sources of inefficent spending is a discussion for another day and another news article

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Sounder40]

Because of stupid NASA planning, true. But only partly. NASA contractors overinflated project costs whenever possible to build their stake. And congress couldn't keep their stinking fingers out of the pie, constantly micro-managing NASA spending. It was, and still is, a mess. I watched it for 15 years at JSC in Houston before I could no longer stand it.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Tsingi]

Shutting down? Hardly. Aren't there exciting new research programs into how to turn shit and piss into delicacies? What could be more exciting?

I believe the program (If I remember correctly) researched how to turn piss into Coors Light or Bud. Hardly a delicacy, or even that much of a conversion.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Anonymous Coward]

Taking a back seat to Libya, pulling out of Iraq, drawing down in Afghanistan. Did you want something more magical?

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Seumas]

It was inevitable, anyway. We're more interested in fixing potholes and bailing out commercial entities with plants in the government for trillions of dollars than pursuing the most basic human (and, arguably, America) endeavor -- exploration. Yes, there are still individuals and organizations that care about this, but there was a time (sadly, before my years) when everyone was captivated by it.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[d3vi1]

Oh, you poor thing... One can only dream. I do applaud your child-like innocence. Who knows, sometimes south dreams might come true. Four of the hundreds of kids that 40 years ago dreamed to be astronauts, are now in orbit, so maybe, just maybe, your dream can come to life.
</sarcasm>
I'm sure that NASA would have decent funding if it wasn't for the Middle-East conflicts.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Tsingi]

So ends America's wasteful spending on a program that didn't live up to what was promised.

I didn't hear the news.. we're pulling our troops from the Middle East conflicts?

Be careful not to confuse 'promise' with 'intent'. The US administration does not litter their promises with words about what is really going on.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Seumas]

We need to re-appropriate NASA's budget to more important things like paying Goldman Sachs to rape our asses.

It's amusing that the future of mankind's existence relies on exploration of space, but we freak out over a few billion here and there. On the other hand, a couple financial institutions or car manufacturers face the realities of a free market and we trip over ourselves throwing trillions at them.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Soft]

Your comment resonates with what Arthur C. Clarke wrote in the post-Apollo preface to Prelude to Space:

Yet when, in 1947, I set this novel exactly thirty years in the future, I did not really believe that a lunar landing would be achieved even by that distant date [...] Still less could I have imagined that the first nation to reach the Moon would so swiftly abandon it again. ...

In one sense, the Apollo Project was indeed a Prelude to Space. Now there will be a short interlude; and sometime in the 1980s, the real story will begin.

The hiatus has been somewhat longer, but hopefully the rise of the commercial manned spaceflight will bootstrap a self-sustaining economic sector, which will no longer be at the mercy of the whims of governments and lobbies, and ossified agiencies crumbling under their own weight.

Only when spaceflight reaches that point, will that story begin.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Sounder40]

Flamebait? Hardly. It's dead on. US space policy has been a mess since the day after Apollo 11. Before then, we had a clear mission. That mission was to land on the moon, and do it before the Soviets. We accomplished that mission. The next mission was to establish a space station, a moon base, and a cheaper way to get to them both. The shuttle could have been significantly cheaper but contractors, congress, and NASA itself got in the way. (Reusable SRBs? Really? How much did we "save" reusing them?) And there was no more sense of mission like there was before Apollo 11. Public apathy too.

So, in my humble opinion, not flamebait.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

If you remain one of these people who doesn't think today is depressing as fuck, I'd like some of what you're having.

I like how we've gone to bitching about how the shuttle program is to old to emo rants about the end of the space program.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Anonymous Coward]

its called valium. Have one and chill out :)

But I too share your feelings. Space flight is going backwards after today.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[tibit]

I somewhat agree. About the only truly insightful thing to ever come directly out of the Shuttle program was Feynman's analysis of how NASA's modus operandi is seriously broken. And it was promptly forgotten, so Columbia happened. And I'm sure they'll forget it again in whatever the next big program is going to be.

Of course Shuttle has contributed to many useful missions -- it's hard to tell, for example, what would have happened to Hubble mission without Shuttle. The reasonable thing to do would have been to launch another one with a fixed mirror, since a Shuttle launch costs way more, but people don't always to the economically sensible thing (sigh).

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[MindStalker]

We still launch unmanned rocket on a pretty frequent basis. We are temporarily pausing a manned missions.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Anonymous Coward]

Only 2 countries now capable of launching humans into orbit - Russia and China - communism has won!

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Amouth]

yea the last 10 years back

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Anonymous Coward]

Not likely. I'll bet the US Air Force is VERY interested in dominating space.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, as far as manned space exploration goes, we've never been that far from home. We put a handful of people on the moon. They brought back some rocks. Other than that, every single manned flight has remained well within Earth's gravity well. Hell, there's only been a handful of probes that have left or will leave the solar system.

Go put on your Captain Splendid costume, walk out your front door, and stand on the edge of the porch closest to the door. That is as far as we've been. We've tossed a few coins off the far edge. Everything else is still on the porch. The porch is the playground; get over it.

Is today really depressing as fuck? Damn it, today is exciting. We're on the edge of human space exploration as a PRIVATE enterprise. That's a big fucking deal. Sure, the first first SpaceX crews will be NASA employees, but that's because those launches will be NASA contracts. Other groups, other companies, can contract those services as well.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Captain Splendid]

We're on the edge of human space exploration as a PRIVATE enterprise. That's a big fucking deal.

You mean billionaire's toys. There is no short-term profit to be had in space. The private 'Space Industry' will be deader than Nasa in under 10 years.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[shadowfaxcrx]

Well, generally when I start bitching that my car is too old, I replace it. I don't get rid of the car and then sit around at home for at least 5 years figuring out what my next car will be. It'd be nice if our elected officials had the same foresight with NASA as we all do with our cars.

I don't have a problem with turning over space transportation to private companies, but I do think it would be really nice if those private companies were ready to transport before we turned it over to them.

I'm not a real big fan of hitching rides with the Russians. All it's gonna take is for the Presidents of each country to have a pissfight and suddenly we lose our ride to the station that we, for the most part, built.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[M1FCJ]

They might as well. Republicans are trying to kill as many science projects they can without damaging their pork. JWST is very likely to be canned this month.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[M1FCJ]

Challenger happened mainly because of the Congress because they wanted to build the solid rocket boosters in a far far away state. Then the only was was to ship them by barge. To be able to do that, they had to be in segments. And hence they needed O-rings.It's all about poli-ticks.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[M1FCJ]

Why should they hang around in any case? Once the launch happens, the control switches to Houston. Why? Because way back the Congress wanted NASA to spend some money in Texas, not Florida.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Anonymous Coward]

That was hilarious! Once the Tea Party is in power there will be plenty more of that and I for one say good!

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[M1FCJ]

AF has no interest in a manned space programme. An unmanned one on the other hand... Not a lot of people know but NASA's is not the biggest space programme in the world. Air Force and its black project siblings are the biggest money spenders. They launch more often too.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Anonymous Coward]

Add look what that got us. Squat.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Well, generally when I start bitching that my car is too old, I replace it. I don't get rid of the car and then sit around at home for at least 5 years figuring out what my next car will be.

You would if you were commissioning for it to be built for a pricetag in the millions.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Farmer Tim]

Space flight is going backwards after today.

Did anyone else read that and think of this?

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[SnarfQuest]

Shutting down? Hardly. Aren't there exciting new research programs into how to turn shit and piss into delicacies? What could be more exciting?

Actually, what they are trying to invent is something called Soylent Green, and they've only got 10 years to do it in.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[arisvega]

Meh maybe not just yet.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[0123456]

Challenger happened mainly because of the Congress because they wanted to build the solid rocket boosters in a far far away state. Then the only was was to ship them by barge. To be able to do that, they had to be in segments. And hence they needed O-rings.It's all about poli-ticks.

To be fair, I don't believe anyone has built a one-piece solid rocket the size of the shuttle SRBs and there are some significant technical issues with large solid rockets. The usual failure mode seems to be a massive explosion rather than a leak.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[ColdWetDog]

You mean billionaire's toys. There is no short-term profit to be had in space. The private 'Space Industry' will be deader than Nasa in under 10 years.

Perhaps we should just run with that and see what happens (not that we have much of a choice). During the past 10 years, NASA hasn't done much for the manned space program (unmanned is a different story). And rather recently we have seen this weird development of isolated billionaire nerds. Maybe that's what we need. Don't forget, the Chinese are creating a similar class of uber wealthy individuals as are the Indians. A couple of these people locked in a competition for the first Space Lord could be very interesting indeed.

(Cue evil laughter).

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you should go visit a third world (or even a second world) nation before proclaiming that American is becoming one.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Anonymous Coward]

Shutting down? Hardly. Aren't there exciting new research programs into how to turn shit and piss into delicacies? What could be more exciting?

Yes, 2 girls 1 cup.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[ColdWetDog]

America is quickly becoming what used to be known as a third world nation. Our space program is now below the Russians and Chinese in terms of capability. We are selling our roads, power plants, ports and other basic infrastructure. So it goes.

Oh really? The Russians have Soyuz - a 1960's design launched on upgraded 1970's military boosters. Not to denigrate them - they've done an impressive yeoman's job of tossing stuff up in the air and getting it back. They are the number 2 contributor to the ISS. But they have done little else (in the manned spacecraft sector). The Chinese have, wait for it, a copy of the Soyuz and some Grand Ambitions (these are pretty inexpensive, I can sell you a couple at a big discount if you are interested).

I don't think anyone wishes or imagined that the situation would have been this bleak coming into the 21st Century, but there you have it. Reality is a bitch. Yep, we've got enormous problems with infrastructure in the US and we should be doing much better. However, to call us a 'third world nation' in space is really pretty stupid. Even for an AC.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Thud457]

Challenger happened mainly because of the Congress because they wanted to build the solid rocket boosters in a far far away state. Then the only was was to ship them by barge. To be able to do that, they had to be in segments. And hence they needed O-rings.It's all about poli-ticks.

To be fair, I don't believe anyone has built a one-piece solid rocket the size of the shuttle SRBs and there are some significant technical issues with large solid rockets. The usual failure mode seems to be a massive explosion rather than a leak.

Wrong , and how!

The #1 & #2, largest single rocket motors ever fired were monolithic SRBs. Look up the Aerjoet AJ-260 program from the early sixties. (sorry, Astronautix is offline right now) NASA dropped the idea once they had the kinks adequately worked out of the liquid fueled engines.

Their competitor in the program never managed a successful firing, blowing up their prototype, and then went on to lobby congress for the contract for the only certified astronaut-killing SRBs in the world. niiiiiiceee....

If we had kept at it another 5, 10 years, I'm sure we'd have 'em if we wanted them.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[cyfer2000]

IMHO it is turning of a new page.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Snarky McButtface]

In the short term it may just be a toy for the wealthy but there are profits to be made in space in the long term. The world's appetite for resources such as iron is increasing and there is a limited supply of it on this rock.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[compro01]

You can also point fingers at the DoD for a lot of the crap tacked onto the shuttle.

The SRBs were added so the shuttle could put a reconnaissance satellite into polar orbit, and thus get the DoD's support for the project.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[thrich81]

I am not depressed at all. I saw the first Shuttle launch in 1981 (on TV). After 30 years it is time for something new. As long as the Shuttle stayed around it prevented the new from coming along. And the Shuttle wasn't going anywhere new. So even if nothing replaces it (unlikely), would we really better off if Atlantis was still flying 30 years from now on its 10 jillionth orbit of the Earth instead of shutting down after it's 5 jillionth now? Seeing the Apollo-Saturn vehicles come and go in 8 years -- now that was depressing

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[c0d3g33k]

I wasn't alive to witness the first launch of the space shuttle

I was, and it was wonderful. There was a time when every launch of the shuttle was an event worth noting, and those of us who were interested would gather around the radio or TV to witness the event. That stopped when shuttle launches became commonplace. That was cool, because, well, launching a ship into space should be commonplace. Sadly, this meant noone cared any longer, because shuttle launches were unremarkable and uninteresting. Now no-one cares about space any longer, and the shuttle program is discontinued with no replacement in sight. Welcome to the new Dark Ages. This is a sad day.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[thrich81]

You have to wonder what we could have done building one Saturn V and four Saturn IBs per year for the last 30 years (with incremental upgrades along the way). For example, it took one Saturn V launch and one Saturn 1B to launch, repair, and crew Skylab.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Captain Splendid]

So even if nothing replaces it (unlikely)

You have a hell of a lot of catching up to do.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Captain Splendid]

Yes, I'm sure these rich idiot are going to make the jump from piddly little LEO jaunts to full-blown lunar mining any day now.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[TheRaven64]

There is no short-term profit to be had in space

You'd better tell that to all of the satellite TV companies...

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Lillebo]

I couldn't agree more. I'm totally convinced we'll see a flourishing private space industry well before we're dead. Astroid mining, harvesting solar energy .. something like that must become a motivator for entrepreneurs and investors sooner or later. And the baby steps taken during the tourism era could provide the fuel to the industry's growth through innovation and cost efficiency.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[CraftyJack]

Well, generally when I start bitching that my car is too old, I replace it. I don't get rid of the car and then sit around at home for at least 5 years figuring out what my next car will be.

Try "boat" instead of "car" and the spaceflight analogy gets a bit better. You thought you'd be getting a lot of use out of the thing back when you bought it, but it didn't turn out that way. As much as you enjoy it, it's really expensive.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[HarvardAce]

In the short term it may just be a toy for the wealthy but there are profits to be made in space in the long term. The world's appetite for resources such as iron is increasing and there is a limited supply of it on this rock.

Yes, there is a limited supply of iron on Earth. There is also a limited supply of atoms on Earth, because the Earth is not infinite. However, iron is the most abundant element on Earth (source), although a good portion of that is in the Earth's core. The value of iron compared to the cost of mining it outside of our gravity well doesn't really add up, though. If mining iron outside of Earth ever becomes a profitable proposition then we're likely in dire straits already...

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[countertrolling]

Hardly a delicacy, or even that much of a conversion.

Yep, just filter out the kidney stones with a strainer, and you're good to go

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Captain Splendid]

Pedantry on Slahsdot? Unpossible!

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[countertrolling]

"Da speediest way tooda iron 'tis goen through the planet core..."

The supply might be limited, but wake me when we starts to consumen even a hundredth of a percent of it..

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Graymalkin]

The Saturn V rockets were all essentially custom builds. None of the Saturn models were really designed for mass production or much of anything outside of the needs of the Apollo program. The Apollo Applications Program was meant to find some use for the Apollo infrastructure past the cancellation of the Apollo program.

Skylab only existed because Apollos 18-20 were canceled and the Saturn Vs earmarked for those flights became available. The SL-1 launch also only launched the Skylab vehicle itself, not the crew. The first crew was launched separately using a Saturn IB rocket a little more than a week after Skylab was put in orbit.

The only thing to wonder about the Saturn V rockets would be what sort of LoC statistics the vehicle would have wound up having. If you only count launched Apollo missions (ignoring the ill-fated Apollo 1 loss) it had a 6.2% LoM (loss of mission) rate and counting Apollo 1 a 5.8% LoC rate (loss of crew). The Space Shuttle with 135 flights has had a LoC rate of 1.4%.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[countertrolling]

The Challenger disaster was caused by a bad decision to launch despite a known weakness in the design. A fix was already in the works, but not before the state of the union address that Reagan wanted to make glorifying the space program and the first 'regular' civilian in space. His propaganda machine demanded a launch at that moment. Any further delays were deemed unacceptable.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[fatboy]

I watched the first shuttle launch on a 13" black and white TV. I took Polaroid pictures of the screen. I still have them tucked away somewhere. I watched this launch on my cellphone. What a difference 30 years makes.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[fatboy]

But the SRBs didn't need to be reusable! It costs more to have "reusable" SRBs than one time use SRBs. It made no sense for the SRBs to be "reusable".

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[thrich81]

I'm open to the arguments you are making, but the real metric should be, "Given the same funding from 1970 (or whenever STS funding started) to 2011, would we have done more in space by continuing to build Apollo-Saturn vehicles or the Shuttle?" The Russians have done alright by continuing their line of Soyuz spacecraft. Mass production or not, we built a lot of Saturn 1 and Saturn 1B vehicles in a short time in the early 1960s. Saturn V's were maybe a bit of a different beast and there may have been low rate production problems with them, but big Titans became available for big unmanned payloads by the 70's. The Shuttle requires a lot of maintenance between flights so it isn't as if we built them and just did "million-mile checkups" every once in a while. As far as the LoM and LoC stats go, you are correct on the historical numbers but going forward it is probably legitimate to hypothesize an Apollo-Saturn loss rate to evolve as the Soyuz rate did, which became about the same as the Shuttle. The Shuttle had at least one LoM (STS-83), and I will almost count the mission which launched Galileo to Jupiter as a LoM because part of the reason the high gain antenna failed was due to Shuttle driven delays and trucking it around the country -- I admit that is a stretch. To be fair to the Saturn V and IBs -- they never had a LoC and arguably no LoMs (second flight of the Saturn V was bad), it was the Apollo craft which failed both times. The Air Force had the choice between sticking with the Shuttle and going back to expendable boosters in the 80's for their unmanned flights and they picked expendables -- again maybe not completely fair if we are only discussing man-rated vehicles. I guess we can make Saturn vs STS arguments forever, to little practical use, but I am willing to listen. Around work it is a generational split.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[DerekLyons]

So ends America's wasteful spending on a program that didn't live up to what was promised. Maybe now space exploration can start heading back on the right direction.

America's space exploration will never head in the right direction - because the Shuttle's budget and body count is a faction of what will be racked up heading in the right direction, and damn fools won't spend money or blood. What's we'll get is what the public really wants.... a 'safe' and 'cheap' Potemkin village.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Anonymous Coward]

I cant help but feel somehow this is the human race's Suicide note. No access to the to rsources in space no long term advanced civilisation.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[bill_mcgonigle]

Flamebait? Hardly. It's dead on.

Ironic in light of the GGP's sig.

The [project] could have been significantly cheaper but contractors, congress, and [agency] itself got in the way.

Oh, it was a government project?

Public apathy too.

Yeah, well if the weekly-launch idea that was sold actually came to fruition, three things would be true: the public would have loved it, it would have been profitable, and by now it would have already been replaced with a better model as the profits could have funded the next generation in a self-sustaining way.

In a way, though, this is good - that's exactly what the private companies are going to do and subsidized government programs aren't going to artificially compete against them.

I'm not going to bet against a billionaire and his dream.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Snarky McButtface]

I don't think it adds up now either. But in 50 to 70 years I believe may be worth the cost. Global steel consumption is projected to be 1.359 billion metric tons this year and 1.441 billion metric tons in 2012 (source). Emerging economies are investing heavily in infrastructure and this trend will continue for some time. Then what about the next round of emerging economies? I don't claim to be correct but I think it is a likely scenario.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[ryanov]

I was born 6 months later. I basically grew up with this thing. Was glad to make it to the last launch to see it off!

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Risen888]

You're both right, but you're both wrong.

Obviously yes, there is money to be made in orbit; whether you like TheRaven's example or not, it's in no way pedantic.

But orbit ain't space. It remains to be seen whether a profit can be turned in space.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Risen888]

We're not doing any of those things, don't be dense.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[TheRaven64]

It is, however, about as far as the shuttle can go. Lamenting the retirement of a craft that can only reach orbit as the end of human space travel is silly. There is a huge amount of profit to be made in the part of space that the Shuttle can reach. The bit that is hard to make a short-term profit from is the bit that the shuttle can't reach anyway. Compare the number of satellite launches by private enterprise and by the Shuttle during its lifetime.

The Shuttle made a huge number of compromises in the design for a mission profile that was never used: bringing back satellites for repair on Earth. For any other mission profile, it was not the right tool for the job, and was used solely for prestige.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[mcgrew]

Maybe, maybe not. What other country has commercial, private or corporate space companies?

That said, the shuttle has a special place in my heart. I'm old enough to have been around for the entire history of space travel; I remember as a kid how Sputnik scared the hell out of all the adults. I remember the Apollo fire and how everyone was afraid it was the end of the space program. I watched the first moon landing on TV. I remember Apollo 13 and how nobody thought the astronauts were going to get back home.

I was working at Disney World when the first shuttles flew. I saw most of them from Orlando, a night launch from my mom's house in Tampa, and a couple at the Cape. The first one we saw up close my oldest daughter was about three months old. Had we known how loud the shuttle was we would have left her with my mom.

In fact, I saw every shuttle launch until we moved back to Illinois. The first launch I mot only didn't see in person I missed completely -- I was out looking for work.

It was the Challenger, and it exploded over the Atlantic. Leila was just a baby, she's 26 now. Patty wasn't even born yet. It's funny, I don't feel any older now than I did when Apollo 13 had its accident.

Even though I'm 59 I still hold out hope I'll get to go to space someday. My grandmother was born about six months before the Wright brothers took off from Kittie Hawk, and she flew in commercial airliners and saw the moon landing and the shuttle flights (she died in 2003 at age 99).

I envy you young people. You can't imagine the changes the world will go through in your lives. When I was 14 and Star Trek came out, the communicators, door that opened by themselves, flat screen computers, McCoy's sick bay, were all unrealistic fantasies, but reality has actually surpassed fantasy.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Risen888]

Completely agreed.

30 years was a good run

[Joe_Dragon]

a new one will take some time to get up and going.

Re:30 years was a good run

[perpenso]

a new one will take some time to get up and going.

That was a well known issue and the plan was to have something new before shuttle retirement. Too bad all the attempts at something new were never followed through on.

Re:30 years was a good run

[Xenkar]

Too bad Congress managed to cut the funding on any replacement programs once they showed even the smallest glimmer of potentially being finished.

"Moneys being spent on outer space?!?! This space vehicle doesn't have any pork for my congressional district! We have sovereign nations to invade using the excuse of the month and it takes more money than we have to do it! This has to go!"

Re:30 years was a good run

[Anonymous Coward]

a new one will take some time to get up and going.

That was a well known issue and the plan was to have something new before shuttle retirement. Too bad all the attempts at something new were never followed through on.

more like defunded by Republicans.

Re:30 years was a good run

[Anonymous Coward]

a new one will take some time to get up and going.

That was a well known issue and the plan was to have something new before shuttle retirement. Too bad all the attempts at something new were never followed through on.

more like defunded by Republicans.

Sorry its modern liberals that do not like the space program. In their opinion money spent on space should be redirected towards earthbound social programs, despite decades of NASA success and return on investment, and decades of failure on the war on poverty.

Modern liberals only believe in JFK photos, not in JFK's policies.

Re:30 years was a good run

[Anonymous Coward]

a new one will take some time to get up and going.

That was a well known issue and the plan was to have something new before shuttle retirement. Too bad all the attempts at something new were never followed through on.

more like defunded by Republicans.

Eisenhower (R): Skeptical of manned flight but in favor of satellites. Created NASA. Wanted to avoid space race and the bureaucracy that would follow.
Kennedy (D): ***Opposed*** Apollo as a senator, poised to dismantle Apollo early in his presidency. Vice President Johnson got him to postpone any decision and Yuri Gagarin's flight got JFK to reverse course and support Apollo.
Johnson (D): Believed in the space program but cut NASA, in part to fund his social programs and Vietnam.
Nixon (R): NASA funding declined, some Apollo missions canceled, Nixon did not like the moon base and mars landing plans. However he did like and approve the Space Shuttle. He also approved joint missions with the Soviet Union.
Ford (R): Minor NASA funding increase.
Carter (D): Did not like Apollo-style programs, only approved of limited short range goals.
Reagan (R): Sought to increase NASA funding by 30%.
Bush Sr (R): Sought to increase NASA funding by 20%.
Clinton (D): In favor of manned and unmanned missions.
Bush Jr (R): Big fan of space exploration, manned and robotic. Proposed return to moon, landing on Mars. Various rocket and capsule programs were approved.
Obama (D): Canceled programs, rejected return to moon. Funded a new heavy lift rocket.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_policy_of_the_United_States

Re:30 years was a good run

[cavreader]

Look up X-37,X-37B, OTV-2. Unmanned space plane capable of reaching orbit, orbital maneuvering, atmospheric hypersonic maneuvering, and run way landing. Unlike the shuttle this vehicle is actually aerodynamic and can fly in atmosphere. Sizable cargo space. Can be upgraded for manned missions. Has already had multiple test flights dating back to 2004 under heavy security. Project is being run under the DARPA umbrella which usually means military applications are part of the picture. The vehicle has served as a new aerospace technology testing platform since 2003. US technology initiatives are not quite as bad as everyone seems to believe or wants to believe.

Re:30 years was a good run

[perpenso]

Upgraded for manned missions? Other than a "pod" to carry an astronaut back as part of a rescue mission?

Re:30 years was a good run

[cavreader]

Boeing has designs for both manned and unmanned versions. They published a synopsis laying out the pros and cons of manned versus unmanned designs. It's still basically a prototype because they are still testing different fuels and and booster engines. It just makes since to concentrate on the unmanned version first to limit the risk to test pilots. This vehicle is going to end up creating a shit storm from other countries once they realize the military anti-satellite capabilities a vehicle such as this provides.

Re:30 years was a good run

[MJMullinII]

That's all well and bottled up until you realize that the "heavy lift rocket" you glaze over at the very end IS SOMETHING YOU CAN'T EVEN LEAVE LOW-EARTH ORBIT (much less go to the Moon or any place else) WITHOUT.

At best you can say that President Obama has kicked the "NASA Can" down the road a little, but to suggest he's somehow tying their hands is ludicrous.

As little as 12 months from now we could well have PRIVATE CORPORATIONS able to supply human access to low-earth orbit (which is all you need to reach the ISS, do any type of larger construction in the event you choose to go to the Moon, Mars, etc.) -- NASA DOESN'T NEED TO WASTE MONEY ON THAT.

Thirty years ago, yes -- the Space Shuttle was one hell of a deal (even with its cost over runs and greatly exaggerated capabilities) -- but now it's 100% superfluous and the only reason to continue flying it is out of nothing but pride -- and pride is something you've got to get over if you want to do great things.

What's ultimately going to happen with NASA, I have no idea. But five years from now (perhaps as few as three) they will have the technical capability to do anything we can dream of (Private Launchers to send astronauts into space, their own Heavy Launch Vehicle to go farther, etc.) -- all we'll have to do is choose our destiny!

See -- :) -- I bet you thought I was going to be all mean, didn't you?

Commercial spaceflight ...

[perpenso]

So goes America's dominance in space.

Well the American government's dominance(*), there is still the American commercial spaceflight industry. Let's hope the government does not over-regulate or otherwise screw up this emerging industry.

(*) Dominance may be overstating things. The Russians have done a lot of important work, much of it complementary to America's work and experience.

Re:Commercial spaceflight ...

[f1vlad]

Exactly, we're to see how things will change when it gets privatized.

Re:Commercial spaceflight ...

[kuzb]

The same thing that happen when you privatize anything. Corporations overcharge, provide shitty service, and generally use their influence to manipulate the government.

Re:Commercial spaceflight ...

[eln]

Commercial space flight has no vision beyond sending tourists to LEO and throwing more satellites into higher orbits. It's never going to move beyond that on its own because the economics don't work for entities incapable of thinking that long term. Every possible monetary benefit from leaving earth orbit is so far away that no commercial entity will take it on. This is why the government needs to remain heavily involved in space exploration: if it doesn't, no one else (other than foreign governments) will.

Retiring the shuttle program is good in some ways because it frees up resources to go for more ambitious goals like Mars and beyond. It's bad, though, in that it takes away NASA's primary method of staying in the public eye. People get excited about humans going into space. Most people don't get excited about sending robots into space. This sort of thing is important to an organization whose funding is subject to the changing political winds.

The projects NASA has in the works sound really exciting, but with cutting cost being the name of the game in Washington these days, NASA needs all the public support it can get to keep all of its plans from dying on the vine as its budget gets eviscerated. Removing the one thing that got it on TV on a regular basis isn't a good thing in these circumstances.

Re:Commercial spaceflight ...

[Captain Splendid]

They also like a fat return on their investment, and 'space tourism' just won't cut it in the long run.

We're done in space.

Re:Commercial spaceflight ...

[DrgnDancer]

"Late to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise" -- Wernher von Braun

NASA could really do with a man like him again. Not that he was a saint, far from it as anyone who was on the receiving end of a V-2 would surely tell you, but he had the essential characteristics that made him hugely successful in selling space. He was an scientist who understood what must be done, a visionary who saw the need to do it, and a media savvy and inspiring person who could sell the package to government and the public.

Of course his efforts were also helped immensely by the Soviet decision to give us someone to race with. Everything always seems just a bit more important when your rival is trying to beat you at it.

Re:Commercial spaceflight ...

[perpenso]

Commercial space flight has no vision beyond sending tourists to LEO and throwing more satellites into higher orbits.

I know a few people involved in commercial space flight. Their vision extends beyond that. They are the same sort of dreamers that in the 1950s and 60s would have worked for NASA. Don't be misled by the first practical baby steps that they are attempting.

In general I agree that gov't needs to be involved in some of the more leading edge and purely scientific missions. However that is not quite what the shuttle was doing, it was generally doing those mundane things you mentioned regard commercial enterprises, well not so much the tourist part. Having the commercial folks replace the shuttle is not a bad first baby step.

Re:Commercial spaceflight ...

[BJ_Covert_Action]

You said:

Commercial space flight has no vision beyond sending tourists to LEO and throwing more satellites into higher orbits.

Meanwhile, the founder and CEO of a commercial spaceflight company says:

'I'm planning to retire to Mars'

-- Elon Musk: Founder and CEO of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (Spacex) Citation: here.

If that's not vision, I don't know what the hell definition of vision you are using. I've personally toured the facilities of SpaceX, ULA, Lockheed, Boeing, Northrop Gruman, and JPL. I can tell you right now, the energy, enthusiasm, and drive at SpaceX is in a class of its own. That company, and its founder, has more vision for the space industry than the sum total of the other agencies I have listed combined.

Mark my words as an aerospace engineer: SpaceX is the future of successful United States space business, and they have the gumption and drive to pull off the stuff folks have been declaring to be impossible for about twenty years now. Just like Google lit a fire under the ass of stale computer companies like Microsoft and Apple, SpaceX is going to be the spark that fans a whole new flame and era of space exploration for the United States.

Re:Commercial spaceflight ...

[SnarfQuest]

You can see what to expect by just listening to the current president

1. Rich people are pure evil.
2. Only rich people can afford to build their own spacecraft.
3. Therefore spacecraft are evil.
4. Incredible increase in taxes on spacecraft.
5. Spacecraft manufacture/jobs move out of the USA.
6. The end of US spacecraft.
7. Another successful economic stimulus program program for Obama!

Re:Commercial spaceflight ...

[perpenso]

The same thing that happen when you privatize anything. Corporations overcharge, provide shitty service, and generally use their influence to manipulate the government.

Commercial aviation proves otherwise. You may wish to quibble over service but in constant dollars airfare has come down quite a bit in price over the decades so its not unreasonable that cuts were made in other areas, or that some costs are externalized from air fare. Are there occasional screw ups, absolutely, but I don't think I'd characterize overall service poorly. I've found airline employees as helpful as they can be most of the time.

Re:Commercial spaceflight ...

[perpenso]

They also like a fat return on their investment, and 'space tourism' just won't cut it in the long run.

Sorry, but I think commercial aviation will be a better comparison than banking, and commercial aviation is not known for a fat return.

Re:Commercial spaceflight ...

[Anonymous Coward]

They still have this, just not at NASA. My friend works for Space X. He puts in 100 hour work weeks, as do many others there. I wish I were exaggerating but he's also been obsessive about what he does (ran a half ironman recently). I'm proud of NASA, they started the dream. The good news is that they've inspired others to carry on the torch, and these people have space on the mind, even beyond commercial profit.

Re:Commercial spaceflight ...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's nice but who is going to pay for it?

Re:Commercial spaceflight ...

[jafac]

Retiring the shuttle program is good in some ways because it frees up resources

What resources?

Face facts: these resources were CONNED out of the Military Industrial Complex on the PROMISE that the STS would be a multi-purpose system that could orbit KH-based surveillance missions out of the Western Range. (this never happened, by the way. Thiokol/ATK NEVER delivered on the required-and-promised boosters to put the shuttle into a proper high-inclination orbit from the Western Range).

The only reason "we" have an ISS, is because we could CON the European Union to go in "halvsies" with us. I am betting that we will end up selling our share in the near future.

Re:Commercial spaceflight ...

[countertrolling]

Yeah, but 'space brothels' will mark the real turnaround. Just like every other technology, porn will lead the way

Re:Commercial spaceflight ...

[countertrolling]

"In German oder English I know how to count down,
Und I'm learning Chinese," says Wernher von Braun.

Re:Commercial spaceflight ...

[darkmeridian]

You sound like a moron. Obama's policy regarding space is to expand the private sector's development of novel rockets and delivery vehicles. He believes that NASA's budget should go towards developing high-tech stuff, not rockets.

Re:Commercial spaceflight ...

[Anonymous Coward]

But there is another side. When the US government pretty relaxed regulations on airlines, a lot of people, including me, could finally afford to fly.
And when I go to the grocery store, there is a large selection of food for me to pick from.
And when I pick up my cell phone to make a call, it works.
And an evil corporation built the computer I'm using and the car I drive.

Stop branding all corporations as evil. You're displaying either your ignorance or lack of will to research something being spouting off.

And, no, I do not work for a corporation. I work for a not-for-profit rural hospital.

Re:Commercial spaceflight ...

[Anonymous Coward]

So... how do we get "TEH TERRORISTXORZ!!!!1one" to plan a interstellar mission using nukes as fuel? And how do we get the Chinese to join in? ^^

Re:Commercial spaceflight ...

[aegl]

"Corporations overcharge"

Shuttle flights worked out at about $1.6 billion each - if these overcharging corporations charge $1B to get the same mass into orbit, then we are $600M ahead.

Re:Commercial spaceflight ...

[Risen888]

Corporations overcharge, provide shitty service...

Oh, you mean like NASA.

Re:Commercial spaceflight ...

[Risen888]

Retiring the shuttle program is good in some ways because it frees up resources to go for more ambitious goals like Mars and beyond. It's bad, though, in that it takes away NASA's primary method of staying in the public eye. People get excited about humans going into space. Most people don't get excited about sending robots into space. This sort of thing is important to an organization whose funding is subject to the changing political winds.

I agree with your sentiment here, but people aren't excited about the shuttle, and haven't been for years. If you talk about the shuttle with anyone who's not a space geek, nobody even knows what they do up there. Just tonight at a barbecue I had to explain to someone that no, the shuttle couldn't go to the moon.

Re:Commercial spaceflight ...

[BigLonn]

Actually not true, whats missing is the nations vision to past low earth orbit, as for the private sector the reason Elon Musk started SPACEX was to make money selling freight hauls to orbit , the iss or any where some one will pay the freight to, all so he can develop the technology to get to Mars himself. To be fair he's already launched the Dragon which cost him $300,000,000.00 to design and fly (Dec 8th 2010) its an interesting story all by itself, read it yourself; http://www.spacex.com/

Re:Commercial spaceflight ...

[BigLonn]

AMEN!

Good Launch

[milbournosphere]

I just watched the launch via the live feed. 30 years of good work. Now...what's next? Here's hoping NASA will have the budget to get its next vehicle up and running.

Re:Good Launch

[kbolino]

The crews of the Challenger and the Columbia might disagree with your assessment of the quality of NASA's work.

Re:Good Launch

[rotide]

I'm hoping NASA stops developing "day to day" vehicles and starts working on next generation technologies. They can do the research while the private industry takes the existing, proven, technology and keeps man flying into orbit. I invision NASA as the R&D arm of the space sector. They can make new and interesting satelites, plan new missions out past orbit, plan habitation on other planets, and plan straight up new tech.

Re:Good Launch

[Anonymous Coward]

Feynman had something to say about that

Re:Good Launch

[dpilot]

+1 on this.

It strikes me that some 50+ years later NASA should be beyond LEO vehicles. If at this point NASA were to develop any sort of LEO capability, it should be a rapid-response rescue vehicle to go to the aid of commercial spacecraft - kind of like the Coast Guard.

Other than that, I'd like to see NASA starting on true space flight - vehicles assembled in orbit that are never meant to get any closer to the Earth. (I was starting to thing that the rescue vehicle mentioned should be space-only until I remembered that reaching any arbitrary orbit is technically easier to do from the ground.)

How about advanced propulsion, like VASMIR and niftier stuff like that fusion thing that used lasers and a boron target?
How about a cycler to get to the Moon or Mars in comfort? (and better radiation shielding)

Re:Good Launch

[milbournosphere]

Make no mistake, space travel ain't easy. Yes, those accidents were horrible. But over the course of thirty years, they put the Hubble telescope into orbit, repaired said telescope, built the international space station, launched three probes and carried many people and satellites into orbit. All of these tasks increased our understanding of the world and worlds around us, and has shown that countries can cooperate in space. These efforts were expensive and dangerous; yes, there were accidents and yes, there were budget over-runs. But NASA and all the people involved work towards the genuine improvement of mankind, and some people have died for it. I'd say that's good work, and I tip my hat to everybody involved.

Re:Good Launch

[sstamps]

No. No, I don't think they would.

Considering the difficulty to achieve manned spaceflight with so few actual failures, they knew and accepted the risks gladly. I don't think they would disagree at all.

Anyone expecting perfection in such a cutting-edge and hugely risky endeavor is kidding themselves.

Re:Good Launch

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad AC. Use the preview button.

Re:Good Launch

[RockClimbingFool]

What NASA really needs to do is put time, money and man power on this type of a spacecraft.

A reusable, multi-mission space craft that is basically a space station that goes from one gravity well to another. It should have life support, exercise facilities and plenty of space for people to live in for up to a year or more. You want to go to mars? send up a lander and ascent vehicle on small launchers, attach to the Nautilus. Then send up astronauts on another small vehicle. Go to mars, do your mission, come back to LEO and leave it parked up there for another mission.

If you can carve up construction of the Nautilus into pieces small enough to be launched by existing launchers, you can take all the budget you would have used developing an 130MT launcher and throw it into building something like the Nautilus.

Re:Good Launch

[Animats]

I'm hoping NASA stops developing "day to day" vehicles and starts working on next generation technologies.

They tried that. It didn't work. See NASA Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program, 1996-2002.

Re:Good Launch

[M1FCJ]

Hubble is an interesting example. Cost of Hubble was 1 billion. Each launch to "fix" Hubble issues was at least 1 billion. It doesn't add up. It would be cheaper to build a series of Hubbles, again and again, with more up to date electronics and avionics every time. The cost would go down thanks to a continuous build and learned lessons and we would have a brand new telescope every 5 years or so.

So many years later, Hubble is about to be dead, finally, and its replacement, JSWT is about to be cancelled due to exploding costs because they kept re-designing it.

It's a bit like Space Station. For 20 years Americans redesigned and redesigned the station. In the end none was used and good old Mir-2 became the basis of the ISS. Once that was up there Americans got their ass into gear and started building components. Also you have to remember, the only reason ISS happened was to prevent all those highly trained Russian Rocket Scientists & Engineers to go and work for "nasty" people.

Until an other Sputnik moment, I am sure that USA will waste its resources in politics and achieve absolutely nothing.

Re:Good Launch

[kbolino]

Nothing done by the shuttle program was particularly revolutionary. The United States had a well established and mature space program by the time the first shuttle entered orbit. Yet two out of the five reusable launch vehicles were destroyed over the course of their lifetime, for a failure rate of 40%. The Apollo program had a similar failure rate, but it at least landed several people on the Moon. I'm not saying the shuttle program didn't improve mankind, but those improvements were merely incremental and obtained at substantial cost.

Re:Good Launch

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet two out of the five reusable launch vehicles were destroyed over the course of their lifetime, for a failure rate of 40%.

That would be an accurate statement if each shuttle had had exactly one flight. In reality, they flew a total of 134 missions, making the actual failure rate closer to 1.5%.

Re:Good Launch

[Anonymous Coward]

So many years later, Hubble is about to be dead, finally, and its replacement, JSWT is about to be cancelled due to exploding costs because they kept re-designing it

About to be dead? It was just upgraded two years ago. According to Wikipedia, It won't be decommissioned for another two years at the earliest with a possible life projection of up until 2021. I think we can still get another decade from it.

Re:Good Launch

[camperdave]

Also, in both cases, it wasn't the shuttle itself that was the problem.

Re:Good Launch

[DerekLyons]

The crews of the Challenger and the Columbia might disagree with your assessment of the quality of NASA's work.

No, I don't think the would. Bodies and blood are the cost of working on the cutting edge and expanding the envelope - and the kind of people attracted to that kind of work know that full well.
 
If I were a crew member, or one of their families, my main emotion would be anger that their sacrifice was wasted and our next steps in space represent a huge step backwards - a retreat towards the illusion of safety and progress.

Re:Good Launch

[kbolino]

I'll grant that the 40% is not an entirely representative number. Nevertheless, the vehicles were designed to be reusable, so the mission-failure rate isn't telling the whole picture, either. We don't assess airplane or car failures by the number of miles they drove before failing, we assess them by how many failed out of the all those produced.

Re:Good Launch

[kbolino]

Drove or flew, as the case may be.

Re:Good Launch

[kbolino]

Since the shuttles weren't shot out of the sky or destroyed by rogue meteors, that is a purely semantic distinction. From an outside perspective, it does not matter that only one component of the system (i.e., the shuttle-booster system) failed if it contributed to the failure of the entire system. Both shuttle and boosters were necessary to perform the intended function (entering orbit), and neither could do so independent of the other. Thus, the whole system is dependent upon both of those components, and the failure of one is equivalent to the failure of all.

(Of course the engineers studying the failure will need to view each piece independently to determine the cause of the failure and develop a solution to prevent similar failures in the future.)

Re:Good Launch

[kbolino]

They did not risk their lives in order to further the bureaucratic interests of NASA and Congress. It was precisely the shuttle program that provided the illusion of safety and progress--and on both counts we can definitely say it was an illusion. Don't get me wrong: space exploration is definitely our future, or else we have none, but the shuttles were abject failures in advancing that aim. You are right that blood is the cost of working on the cutting edge and expanding the envelope, but that has nothing to do with the space shuttle.

Re:Good Launch

[DerekLyons]

Of all the posts on the Shuttle I have ever read on Slashdot, yours has to be roughly the most clueless ever.

Happy and Sad day

[Anonymous Coward]

While the state of Florida was virtually covered in clouds one beacon of blue sky shined above the Launch pad. It was a beautiful launch. There was much joy and many tears. I think I speak for many when I say, I hope that we go back to manned missions again in the not too distant future. Good luck to the crew of Atlantis, and come home safe.

Re:Happy and Sad day

[ryanov]

The weather forecast for the whole day was basically cloudy except for 11-12. Glorious. I watched from Space View Park.

What happened at T-0:31?

[SLot]

Noticed there was a long delay, but I have no speakers at work, so couldn't hear an explanation.

TIA.

Re:What happened at T-0:31?

[kalpol]

Noticed there was a long delay, but I have no speakers at work, so couldn't hear an explanation.

TIA.

Sounded like they said the sensor noting retraction of the cone dome thing wasn't working so they had to verify visually (that was the camera 62 shot).

Re:What happened at T-0:31?

[Ellis D. Tripp]

Apparently the computer couldn't tell if the LOX tank vent arm had properly retracted (probably a bad switch or something like that), and stopped the count. They quickly swung a camera into place to verify that it was fully retracted, then resumed the count.

Re:What happened at T-0:31?

[Anonymous Coward]

They had to verify the vapor recovery arm had fully retracted.

Re:What happened at T-0:31?

[Xupa]

They were waiting for me to tune in. I realized I was late to catch the feed, tried it anyway and the clock was stopped. They resumed within seconds of my feed buffering.

Depressed

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm very sad right now. I've never been able to witness a launch in person, and now I never will. =(

Re:Depressed

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

NASA'll come up with a new vehicle. The best part is when that day comes you'll be able to catch that first launch!

Re:Depressed

[Anonymous Coward]

> NASA'll come up with a new vehicle. The best part is when that day comes you'll be able to catch that first launch!

Dude, you know as well as we all do that our grandkids will be old before NASA ever launches another human being into space, or transports humans from LEO to the Moon, Mars, or anywhere else. NASA will fuck around for the next 20-40 years endlessly planning for its next big project that will never manage to get funded until 15 seconds after Americans get to watch a big red (Chinese) flag get planted on a small red neighboring planet called "Mars". Then, maybe, in a moment of collective national panic, something might happen. Until then, we might as well forget about space flight, because it's over for the rest of our lives (fyi, I'm in my mid-30s).

Re:Depressed

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Big deal. All they've been doing is maintaining the space station, it's not like we were on the verge of heading to Mars. Nothing's different except some NASA funds are freed up now.

Re:Depressed

[Anonymous Coward]

>Nothing's different except some NASA funds are freed up now.

Great, so the Teaparty can cut THEM in a moment of barbaric, indiscriminate fury, so NASA won't have THOSE funds either.

Teaparty-types might have forgotten that it exists, but there IS something called "national pride", and part of America's died today (or at least started dying) because they decided it wasn't profitable since no objective accounting standard exists for quantifying its value in dollars. You have *no* idea how many people I saw crying today as they headed to their cars after the launch in Titusville. 15 minutes after launch, Spaceview Park was a funeral wake. In the past, people headed home from launches smiling and celebrating. Today, people just kind of wandered back to their cars, staring at the ground, looking like FSU/UM/UF football fans after their team was humiliated at home and lost any hope of being national champions.

Dragon Spacecraft

[Danathar]

SpaceX should have it's Dragon module with a crew within 3 years hopefully. They've already fired the thing in to space and retrieved it. It's just a matter of finishing off the crew support and contingency systems.

Re:Dragon Spacecraft

[geekoid]

Oh, is that all.

If they have a launch into space with a crew in 3 years, I'll eat my hat.

Your last sentence might as well read:
"It's just a matter of doing the most difficult and hardest stuff."

Rockets aren't hard, launching a rocket into space isn't really hard. It's expensive, but not hard.

Re:Dragon Spacecraft

[localman57]

Rockets aren't hard, launching a rocket into space isn't really hard.

Yeah. Come on, SpaceX! This is Rocket Science, not Brain Surgery!

Re:Dragon Spacecraft

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Rockets aren't hard, launching a rocket into space isn't really hard. It's expensive, but not hard.

Ha! Spoken like someone who has never tried to successfuly stabilize a chaotic system with over ten-thousand input variables to the dynamics model equations. Sorry geekoid, but anyone who honestly believes launching a rocket into space, a vehicle that is, quite literally, the size of a skyscraper which expends the energy of a large military warhead in a semi-controlled manner in under 5 minutes "isn't really hard," has officially lost all credibility on the topic of launch vehicles.

Re:Dragon Spacecraft

[camperdave]

Yeah. Come on, SpaceX! This is Rocket Science, not Brain Surgery!

Ahem!

Re:Dragon Spacecraft

[Xupa]

Rocket...?! You tell people I'm a ROCKET scientist?? You might as well tell them I'm a toll-taker on the Golden Gate Bridge! ... rocket scientist. hmmph!

Re:Dragon Spacecraft

[mosb1000]

No, putting the rocket up is the hard stuff. All the engineering work is, for the most part, done. The last module they sent up was a fully working prototype. Now it's a matter of getting it certified with NASA for human space flight. They may request some modifications to improve safety, but most of the hard work is done.

Re:Dragon Spacecraft

[bill_mcgonigle]

It's expensive, but not hard.

It's hard to not be expensive.

Space X recently did an approximately $300M build/launch. The NASA estimates for that project were about $7B in-house, or $1.2B if NASA managed a team of contractors to do it.

That is why spaceflight is stagnant. Big government isn't the answer.

Re:Dragon Spacecraft

[bill_mcgonigle]

Spoken like someone who has never tried to successfuly stabilize a chaotic system with over ten-thousand input variables to the dynamics model equations.

C'mon, just slap an arduino in there with an i2c bus and hack up a control algorithm.

lost all credibility on the topic of launch vehicles.

Oh... that.

Re:Dragon Spacecraft

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhm, I've calculated the maneuvers for injecting a geo-stationary satellite and I'm an idiot. So there :P

I seriously question the 10k input variables. While I'm sure they exist, you'd be a fool to think we actually take all of them into account.

Re:Dragon Spacecraft

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Uhm, I've calculated the maneuvers for injecting a geo-stationary satellite and I'm an idiot.

That's cute. I design launch vehicle trajectories for a living as my day job. We do take into account those 10,000 input variables. Sometimes we do so in an explicit manner. Other times we use a "black box" statistical analysis to account for their effects without necessary understanding or labeling them. Both methods are extremely difficult. Both methods require a certain level of intellectual abstraction beyond simple Keplerian conic calculations (your GEO injection maneuver). You can question the 10k variable inputs all you want. Meanwhile, those of us who do this for a living will get back to the hard work. ;)

Still "the Future" for me.

[Fibe-Piper]

Its hard to believe that they have mothballed such a big part of my childhood's imagination.

Growing up with James Bond movies like Moon Raker and X-Men comics using the iconic imagery of the Space Shuttles means they will forever be my idea of futuristic space travel.

It makes it harder to let go without a new, better, faster, inspiring vehicle to latch on to. I mean the Soyuz is rock solid, but it doesn't scream "next gen space travel...

Re:Still "the Future" for me.

[Fibe-Piper]

I forgot to mention Airplane 2

Re:Still "the Future" for me.

[robot256]

It makes it harder to let go without a new, better, faster, inspiring vehicle to latch on to.

Then join me in latching on to the SpaceX Falcon 9 and Dragon capsule. They are the next big thing in human spaceflight, and probably the only new manned craft that will come online by the end of the decade. Yes, it is only designed for LEO, but with a ferry that cheap we'll be able to afford something bigger to go farther out.

Only the second I've watched live

[Alioth]

I've watched two shuttle launches live:

The very first, Columbia, when I was a child at a friend's house.
The very last, today's launch.

All the others I've only seen after the fact. I did watch a re-entry live in person once from a Cessna 172 at about 11,000 feet over the north of Houston at night. It left a plasma trail across the sky from horizon to horizon. It was funny to think when we got back to Houston Gulf airport (formerly called Spaceland, hence its identifier KSPX, sadly now demolished and covered in identikit McMansions) only 40 or so miles away, the shuttle crew had already landed in Florida, disembarked, and were probably halfway though their first cup of coffee.

Re:Only the second I've watched live

[Trixter]

I've watched two shuttle launches live:

The very first, Columbia, when I was a child at a friend's house. The very last, today's launch.

Same here. Glad to know someone else valued the events as historically as I did.

I was 3 years old

[deathcloset]

When Columbia launched, according to my mother, I watched 8 hours of the broadcast. All the way from the astronauts' breakfast to the press conference past the launch. I didn't move.

I guess even at that age we humans are capable of grasping the awesome and extraordinary quality of certain events.

I don't know why I'm posting, except perhaps that through my whole life I have felt a deep attachment to space exploration, science and technological achievement (all of which I've always considered to coincide with humanitarianism, if not cause). The space shuttle has been the icon, the embodiment of that attachment and love.

Lief Ericson made it to america first, but managed to stay only for a short while. It would be 500 more years before explorers returned from Europe (and not in the best form, it should be said).

I know we from Earth will return, and I hope and believe it will not be 500 more years.

Re:I was 3 years old

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry. You will be inspired again: China and India will be there shortly.

Re:I was 3 years old

[SnarfQuest]

Lief Ericson made it to america first, but managed to stay only for a short while. It would be 500 more years before explorers returned from Europe (and not in the best form, it should be said).
 

And he had to fight with the natives, too. Those natives were always getting in the way of the first discoverers.

Re:I was 3 years old

[jafac]

I can say approximately the same. I watched the first moon landing; was pulled out of bed early in the morning, as a 2 year old. And still: transfixed by these very early images in my memory, and understanding the feeling of awe and excitement coming off all the adults in the room, watching this grainy black-and-white TV, scratchy hissy audio voices. .. . and sharing the sense that - this is our destiny.

Someday.

Go onto YouTube and look up Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot" speech. It may *not* be our generation. It may be hundreds of years from now. Who knows what history may transpire, and what changes may take place between now and then? It is certainly disheartening to see that this is not in our immediate future. But to accept that fact, is certainly more comforting than continued blind hope in our continued failed system.

Re:I was 3 years old

[kermidge]

"I don't know why I'm posting, except...."

Yeah, that. Same here. I watched all the unsuccessful Vanguard launches, the Jupiter/Juno Explorer-1 launch, with a sense of awe, frustration, and impatience. (CBS was the only network that consistently gave full, live coverage.) For years I'd read whatever I could lay my hands on about the science, engineering, the dreams - fact and fiction - that related to us exploring and moving a portion of humanity off-planet.

With the passing of STS the U.S. has no man-rated systems. We have no heavy-lift designed, rated, and certified to deliver anything to the ISS. We can't even help take out the garbage or provide lifeboats. We're reduced to hiring a taxi to orbit.

The U.S. Army had a plan in 1959 for a manned moon colony to be partially staffed by 1965 and fully operational by 1969. (Von Braun and most of the others worked for the Army; what became the Saturn series was initially designed at Redstone Arsenal.)

Moon colonies, initially for mining and research and taking the high ground, asteroid mining, L-5 colonies, solar power satellites, expeditions (with follow-on colonies) to Mars and other interesting, useful places, Terra-forming: all unrealized, all, essentially, dead. (For an interesting take on SPS, see "Lime's Crisis." It'll never happen; the Saudis simply aren't smart enough, and their politics would forbid it.)

One hates to see the last of one's dreams die before them.

Hope, I suppose, still persists. There _are_ visionary, competent people working on things - SpaceX, Bigelow, Branson (you just know, by the twinkle in his eyes, that he wants to walk on the moon) and many others. The ESA is looking to man-rate their ATV; China, Japan, and others are proceeding apace, with some interesting projects in the works.

Yet I fret. Earth's population has almost trebled in my lifetime. If I last to the rosy end of the actuary table, it will double again. I fear that if we do not now make a concerted, consistent effort to deploy self-sustaining colonies that it will never happen. Not, at least, until a resurgence of will and understanding and capability 500 or 1000 years hence, presuming the race survives. The sheer combined weight of resource demands and rulers' and the public's self-enforced willful ignorance, stupidity and apathy doom not just our dreams but our long-term survival.

Hail, Atlantis.

Re:I was 3 years old

[deathcloset]

It is amazing, isn't it, that so called blinding, cold, hard facts hold the true comfort and beauty of reality. I must admit, though, that It is not hard for me to see why so many cower from them.

It is easy, too, I think, to see how the blanket of ignorance would seem so warm and inviting. Alas, how do we still fail to show so many that it is a numbness, not a warmth and a vacuum not an invitation?

Perhaps we simply cannot show them, they must see for themselves.

Maybe abandoning bad ideas is something which cannot be taught, only learned.

Learned the hard way, eh?

Maybe that's the best way :)

Just out of curiosity...

[camperdave]

Just out of curiosity, is NASA hanging onto any of the shuttles just in case? Back when DIRECT was promoting an STS-based heavy launcher, they mentioned that there were enough fuel tanks and SRBs to do quite a number of flights - more than the shuttle has done. Could they just park the thing in a hangar somewhere and dust it off if the need arose?

Re:Just out of curiosity...

[geekoid]

No. Maintenance is too expensive, and you can't just put a sheet over this type of equipment and then let is sit.

Re:Just out of curiosity...

[Rogue974]

Not sure how you missed all of the press releases, but the shuttles are being decommissioned and sent to various locations to be part of museum exhibits. Was a bit thing when they were trying to decide where. A bunch of cities put in bids for them and showed what they would do. The final decision was, one would go to NY, one to DC, one to Kennedy Space Center in Florida and one to just outside of Los Angelos.

http://www.khou.com/news/Sources-Houston-will-not-get-one-of-the-retired-space-shuttles-119699914.html

They made the decision and announcement back in April You can google and find where they are dissecting the shuttles and removing many components that contain hazardous chemicals prior to sending them to their final museum homes.

Re:Just out of curiosity...

[camperdave]

Well, Atlantis's last mission was over a year ago. Surely these machines don't need a year of maintenance between launches. Looking at the flight manifest, the shortest turnaround was just under two months, and the longest was a month shy of four years. I may be wrong, but I suspect that most of that time was spent sitting in a hangar with a proverbial sheet over it.

Re:Just out of curiosity...

[ShavedOrangutan]

Just out of curiosity, is NASA hanging onto any of the shuttles just in case?

And what exactly do they expect to do when Clint Eastwood and Tommy Lee Jones need to get into orbit to save the earth from a disabled soviet nuclear satellite? They'd better leave a battery charger on at least one of those things or we're in big trouble.

Re:Just out of curiosity...

[Anonymous Coward]

They are actually dismantling (destroying) the launch towers and parts to make sure nobody can pull something like that out of their sleeves... the program is definitely done!

Re:Just out of curiosity...

[cyclone96]

About 10 years ago I was at the VAB when all 4 orbiters were at KSC. There are only 3 bays in the Orbiter Processing Facility, and at the time the fourth shuttle was usually in Palmdale on a maintenance rotation. On the rare occasion where all four were at KSC, one had to be left in a corner somewhere waiting for it's turn in an OPF bay.

So, as I walked into the VAB (which is essentially a 50 story open bay, with a lot of open space) off on the left is Discovery, engines out, parked in the corner with a huge tarp suspended over it to protect it from stuff falling from above. It looked a little forlorn over there - literally "parked with a sheet over it". It was sort of surreal, because it was like seeing someones old project car in the corner of their garage, except it was an orbiter.

Anyways, even in this sort of storage you wouldn't be able to fly it again. The engineering and manufacturing infrastructure which supports the shuttle has been dissolved or is in the process of being dissolved. The physical orbiter was only a small piece of that infrastructure, which ran the gamut of things from trajectory analysts, simulators, manufacturing facilities for tanks, a control center staffed by trained personnel, etc. etc. It's not like pulling an aircraft out of storage, restoring it, and flying it. The space industry and space systems are still very specialized and rely on significant amounts of engineering, specialized equipment, and specialized knowledge on the part of the engineers and technicians supporting a particular system. Hopefully that will change soon.

Re:Just out of curiosity...

[sconeu]

The one in LA is not "just outside" Los Angeles, it's about as close to downtown as you can get. The California Science Center is right next door to the Coliseum.

The city of Los Angeles is frickin' huge.

Re:Just out of curiosity...

[Denogh]

Just out of curiosity, is NASA hanging onto any of the shuttles just in case?

There will be one at KSC, but it will be a museum piece. Their final resting places will be:

Discovery - The Udvar-Hazy Center in Northern VA
Endeavour - California Science Center in L.A.
Atlantis - Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in FL

Re:Just out of curiosity...

[Anonymous Coward]

SRBs, perhaps, but that was the last external fuel tank. It was actually damaged in Katrina and there were some questions as to whether it would be safe to send or not. There were also some questions whether it had the stringers that delayed Discovery's last launch. Naturally it got a thorough going over and was cleared, but it was uncertain there was even going to be STS-135 until the tank cleared inspection.

The tank manufacturer estimated two years just to be able to retool to produce another tank again.

I'm far for fully knowledgeable, but there are other parts and systems that are probably in the same situation as the tank itself.

Far and away the issue is not going to be primarily wear and tear and replacement of parts, but in the loss of the staff and the expertise to keep the shuttle flight-ready. It's not particularly the sort of job where you can pick up a crib sheet and perform adequately. Keeping that many people around on a program in stasis doesn't make sense without a firm commitment that we're going to fly it again.

    - Zarq

Re:Just out of curiosity...

[Zarquil]

That was me. Gotta remember to log in. *sigh*

Re:Just out of curiosity...

[sgage]

"And what exactly do they expect to do when Clint Eastwood and Tommy Lee Jones need to get into orbit to save the earth from a disabled soviet nuclear satellite?"

You simply buy a couple of seats on a Soyuz, obviously.

Re:Just out of curiosity...

[Confusador]

They used the last fuel tank on STS134, so no go on that (though they could build more). They will be using the 9 RS-25 main engines on the replacement vehicle, according to the current plan, but they will be destroyed in those flights. They could use the SRB segments again, but enough work went into upgrades for Ares1 that I suspect they will use the new ones for what comes next. Miles O'Brien had the CEO ULA on his show today, and she commented that although they proposed a plan to run the shuttle commercially, and it would have been viable, there is not the political will to allow it. So they moved on to other plans, and without them there is no way the shuttle could ever fly again - there's just too much equipment that's been dismantled.

Honestly, I don't think that's a bad thing. The Shuttle was a great machine, and taught us a lot about how to do things efficiently (often by not being efficient itself). Failing to take those lessons and move on to implement them would be a real tragedy... which is why Congress's decisions lately are so painful. But there are a lot of folks who did learn, and I think the Shuttle's legacy will be tremendous.

Re:Just out of curiosity...

[Rogue974]

From the article I linked to.

""Endeavour will be housed at the California Science Center, just outside of Los Angeles."

I just went with what it said. Been to LA once in my life, so very unfamiliar with it.

Re:Just out of curiosity...

[camperdave]

If they used the last tank, then that's it. The factory was closed down. As far as the SSMEs, there is no replacement vehicle in the works. The ARES program was cancelled. Besides, the ARES 1 used a solid rocket based on the SRBs. The ARES V wouldn't be available until 2020 at the rate it was going.

Re:Just out of curiosity...

[sconeu]

Figures. Reporters don't know shit.

No insult intended, Rogue.

Re:Just out of curiosity...

[Rogue974]

No offense taken, was just matter of fact speaking. Maybe I should have added an emoticon so you could see the "body language" that was missed when writing! ;)

Schedule these to be cancelled as well!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully it will be followed by other wasteful major works--preferably of the kind that are entirely worthless, as opposed to NASA. I'm thinking of these as a start:

* The Department of Paranoia and Machinegunning Citizens
* The Department(s) of Not Really Authorized by the Constitution
* Operation Desert Deficit
* Operation Enduring Body Count
* "Bailing out" the housing market distortion paying meaningless imaginary debt with the fruits of real labor
* The War on Body Orifices

One can only hope...

Re:Schedule these to be cancelled as well!

[spaceplanesfan]

There is slight difference between these and Shuttle program.
Shuttle program despite all that pork still had something useful, and thus must be canceled.
Other program have nothing useful, thus will never be canceled.

Re:Schedule these to be cancelled as well!

[DynamoJoe]

Nice to see that they're diverting the funding to the Department of Witless Trollery.

You know

[geekoid]

A post 20 minutes before the launch might have been nice.

Re:You know

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like this?

http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/07/08/0210258/CmdrTaco-at-Kennedy-Space-Center

Re:You know

[Ogive17]

If it was that big of a deal to you, you should have already known about it... unless /. is your only source of news.

White Room

[Moby Cock]

It irked me immensely that the white room crew held up a 'God Bless America' sign. Is there not corner of civilization where we can escape the idiotic God-bothering horseshit of "mainstream America".

Seriously -- its a space craft! And as Gagarin said "I don't see any God up here."* Can we please just give that sentimental nonsense a miss and focus on the science and engineering?

*Yeah, I know, he never said it, but it fits well.

Re:White Room

[Gohtar]

wow, what did God do to you?

Re:White Room

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh. That's pretty much taken on secular status at this point in the US. Even atheists (generally) think nothing of it.

Re:White Room

[Moby Cock]

Nothing, because he doesn't exist.

Re:White Room

[Anonymous Coward]

Just ignore it. You're making it out to be a problem, but who really cares? Do you get upset when athletes point to heaven after making a play? Religion is a big part of some people's lives. Don't hate them for it (unless they also use it as an excuse to be assholes).

I've always wanted to see an athlete visibly blame God when they fail, shaking thier fist toward the sky or something. That would be hilarious.

Re:White Room

[Anonymous Coward]

Gob bless you and your post!

Re:White Room

[Moby Cock]

Heh. It would be hilarious if athletes blamed God.

But, no, I don't give a shit when athletes give credit to God...but...they are not scientists and engineers. I hold them to a higher standard. ;)

Re:White Room

[cyclone96]

I'd take it more as the white room crew making a patriotic statement than a religious reference. In many of the employees, there is a pretty significant sense of national service, both on the part of the government and contractor employees. I would say the majority of employees (at least the ones I worked with, who were mainly engineers) were primarily motivated by things other than a paycheck, which in most cases was smaller than a similar private sector position.

One interesting thing about the "God" reference - I'm not particularly religious, but to some it was not all about the science and engineering when there are people onboard. I've worked manned and unmanned launches. When there are people you actually know and work with daily onboard, it's got a whole different sense about it - and it would cause religious feelings to well up in some people who ordinarily were fairly agnostic.

Re:White Room

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, isn't there a corner in this country where there won't be a post or something from an atheist who gets all PO'ed about someone mentioning God in public? As a group (and perhaps poster exempted), I find atheists to be the most intolerable people. For cryin' out loud they got all bent out of shape about a cross in a dessert that hardly anyone had ever seen.

Re:White Room

[Anonymous Coward]

It takes more faith to believe that God doesn't exist than it does to believe it. In the end you die and either nothing happens or you go to hell. The aftermath is irreversible. Perhaps you should give the subject more critical thinking and an open mind than to arrogantly lockdown and never deal with the subject again like an intelligent and mature thinker would.

I recommend giving Ravi Zacharias (philosophy and apologetics) at http://www.rzim.org/ a couple or so listens. If reason and logic is what you are looking for, Ravi Zacharias is worth it.

Re:White Room

[Anonymous Coward]

What, scientists and engineers are supposed to be atheists who never believe in any philosophy or patriotism? They're not allowed to give into some sentimentality over the end of a 30 year era for the place they work? Don't get me wrong, you have the right to be annoyed and to express that, but they also have the right to express themselves and they aren't required to run it by you first. Besides, just because the sign said "God Bless America" doesn't mean anything really. That's become a phrase that expresses patriotism in this country and isn't necessarily associated with the actual Christian concept of God. What else would they have on there, "America, its a cool place to live"? That'd be kinda boring don't you think. You don't complain about the "mainstream American" God bothering horseshit when someone says, "God damn it" do you?

Re:White Room

[Anonymous Coward]

"Oh, he's an angry elf". No but seriously, he still loves you even though you currently choose to reject him.

Re:White Room

[jensend]

Why do you say a blatant politically motivated lie "fits well"? Khrushchev made that up as part of his campaign to enforce state atheism; Gagarin and his family were Russian Orthodox. Many of the people involved in space exploration have been deeply religious; many have felt that their experience has deepened their appreciation for God's creation and that their relation to the Creator was a driving force in their quest for scientific discovery.

Two quotations from Werner von Braun, a Lutheran without whom we probably never would have put a man on the moon:

Science and religion are not antagonists. On the contrary, they are sisters. While science tries to learn more about the creation, religion tries to better understand the Creator. While through science man tries to harness the forces of nature around him, through religion he tries to harness the force of nature within him.

My experiences with science led me to God. They challenge science to prove the existence of God. But must we really light a candle to see the sun?

For more about Von Braun's faith see here.

One of the main people responsible for the Shuttle program was Dr. James C. Fletcher, NASA administrator for 9 years, who was a faithful Mormon.

Atheists who fancy themselves armchair rocket scientists may not like it, but the space program has not only always been wrapped up in this "sentimental nonsense" - it would never have been possible without it. The men who had the vision to lead America to space were men of faith. In today's world, where militant and brash atheism is on the increase and where "spirituality" and saying "Lord, Lord" (cf Matt 7:21) have displaced real devotion and discipleship among many who claim to be religious, this nation no longer has the vision and the willpower to continue to blaze that trail.

Re:White Room

[deadhammer]

• It takes more faith to believe that the flying Spaghetti Monster doesn't exist than it does to believe it.
• It takes more faith to not believe that thunder and lightning are the result of Zeus's anger at the mortal world than it does to believe it.
• It takes more faith to not believe that Allah is the only one god and that Muhammed is his prophet than it does to believe it.
• It takes more effort to not collect stamps than it does to collect them.
• In the end you die and either nothing happens or you get reincarnated into a lesser form until your karma improves.

Logic: it's not just for breakfast anymore.

Re:White Room

[Amouth]

and FSM bless us all

Re:White Room

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting how many of the most famous scientists believed in God/a god.

Nicholas Copernicus
Sir Francis Bacon
Johannes Kepler
Galileo Galilei
Rene Descartes
Isaac Newton
Robert Boyle
Michael Faraday
Gregor Mendel
William Thomson Kelvin
Max Planck
Albert Einstein

Get out of your box and explore the world.

Re:White Room

[M1FCJ]

There's a reason why American Science is going down the drains.

Re:White Room

[blueturffan]

If the word God bothers you so much, I'd be happy to relieve you of any federal reserve notes bearing the phrase "In God We Trust".

Re:White Room

[Toonol]

I'm an atheist, and I hope I never demonstrate as much religious fervor as you just did.

Re:White Room

[Toonol]

That's mostly because the annoying, intolerant atheists are obviously the only ones you hear. I'm an atheist, and I'm fine with people praying, thanking their God/gods, and other public demonstrations of their faith. Everybody has the right to decide their own beliefs, and to talk about their own beliefs. I think they're wrong, they think I'm wrong, and that's OK. As long as we don't force beliefs on each other, we can get along.

A lot of atheists are decent people that you probably don't even realize are atheists, because they're not the lunatic fringe that gets all shouty and frantic because somebody is believing in God in their presence.

Re:White Room

[0123456]

It takes more faith to believe that God doesn't exist than it does to believe it. In the end you die and either nothing happens or you go to hell. The aftermath is irreversible

Uh, no. The Invisible Pink Unicorn sends all atheists to Invisible Pink Unicorn Heaven where they get free ponies and cake, while those who believe in some kind of god are sent to their religion's version of Hell.

Pascal's Wager was a silly idea when he first proposed it, I'm amazed that anyone would still try to use it centuries later.

Re:White Room

[DrgnDancer]

There's a serious problem with Pascal's Wager (which you are positing the essentials of here). It assumes that you're worshiping the right God(s). The problem is not binary. There are a vast and continuously morphing number of sects, religions, cults, and belief systems; very many of which assume that if you don't believe what they do you will go to something more or less like Hell. It's not enough, according to most major and a many minor religions, to believe in God(s) you have to believe in the right one(s) and follow the right (often ambiguous) moral code. You could be a very devote Muslim and still be wrong according to many Christians, or vice versa. Break down further into Baptist vs. Catholic, Sunni vs Shiite, blah, blah, blah, and the chances that even if you chose to believe in God(s) you pick the right one and the right way to worship Him (/Her/Them) aren't that good. It's like the lottery, you can't win if you don't play, but playing hardly makes you a winner.

Personally I'm not an Atheist (though I'm also not a Christian by any stretch), but not becasue I worry that my all caring and all merciful Gods might toss into a Lake of Fire for all eternity (Apparently Gods get to have completely different definitions of "good", "caring", and "merciful").

Re:White Room

[Sponge Bath]

space program has not only always been wrapped up in this "sentimental nonsense" - it would never have been possible without it.

No space program without religion? The religious may not like it, but intellectual progress and morality does not require god. Because some who worked on the space program claimed to believe in a magical being does not mean the space program is not possible without magical beings.

Re:White Room

[spitzak]

Note that in Pink Unicorn hell everybody gets fruitcake instead of normal cake, so it really is not that bad no matter what you do.

Re:White Room

[HeckRuler]

It's also interesting how many of those people in your list would have been burned at the stake/ostracized had they said else wise.

Re:White Room

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm more partial to "Get a Brain! Morans" and "Go USA"

Re:White Room

[HeckRuler]

It's kinda funny how much one coward will post to hold up his end of an empty argument. I count, what, 4 that are probably all you?

Re:White Room

[Anonymous Coward]

u mad bro?

Does anyone know what they are doing?

[Anonymous Coward]

They would have been better off working out how to make a space elevator. Seems like a lot of money and time was spent with super massive rockets and this is both dangerous and wasteful. I mean why not have a super high flying helium balloon, that you can then fly to a geostationary satellite, to then be 'winched' to the next satellite? How many would you need?

LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE !! MORE MONEY FOR WARS !!

[Anonymous Coward]

Goddamn you gotta hand it to the war pigs !! If anything fuels elite biz it's a fucking goddamn commie*arab) killing war !!

Cheney said it best: FUCK WITH ME and I'll shoot you in your goddamn face, punk !! And you'll thank me for it !!

To The End of an Era

[nevermore94]

I grew up with the shuttles and I am just old enough to remember the first launch. I want to say something really profound, but I just find myself really sad and numb feeling and very disappointed that we do not already have a better replacement ready to fly.

What has happened to us? If feels like despite the tremendous technological breakthroughs that have occurred since the first shuttle flight we have actually gone backwards some how.

No one ever said it was going to be cheap.

[Anonymous Coward]

All they promised with the Space Shuttle is that it was reusable and it could bring large payloads back down. Its just that supporters never corrected anyone when they thought "reusable" == "cheap".

Way to many man hours to make it cheap. BTW (USA man-hours => good for US economy)

Re:No one ever said it was going to be cheap.

[M1FCJ]

Not when you have a couple of lads changing the tiles by hand. It's not like a major operation. It's a bad design from start and you can blame the Air Force for that. The wings were their clever idea to achieve cross-range.

Also they did claim it was going to be cheap. I remember all the talk when I was a little lad and then Challenger happened.

Re:No one ever said it was going to be cheap.

[c0mpliant]

You're exactly right, the idea was to be reusable to bring the costs of spaceflight down.

why only four astronauts?

[Anonymous Coward]

any explanation why only 4?

Re:why only four astronauts?

[Tteddo]

It had something to do with the fact there is no backup shuttle and space needed if an evacuation was necessary.

Re:why only four astronauts?

[John Bresnahan]

They're not doing anything that requires mission specialists, so they decided to send more supplies instead.

Re:why only four astronauts?

[Thud457]

probably partially so they're not too crowded at the ISS if they have to hole up there until the Russians can ferry them back down.

bring back NACA

[Thud457]

1. We need an agency to to scientific research and develop new technologies. It was a mistake for NASA to get ensnarled in running daily operations of getting payloads into orbit.
2. Congress should just provide the goal and the budget, not specify the means of accomplishing the goal. (no gerrymandering the pork across districts to buy votes) This should go for the military, too.
3. The shuttle program is a camel and a fiscal failure. But it was what we had.

Re:bring back NACA

[dpilot]

re #1 - 50 years ago there was nobody to do those daily operations. Today there is. Really, part of the question is whether SpaceX and the like should be launching from NASA facilities, or their own, or rentals, etc. 3rd path - take part of KSC, call it a Space Industry Park, and semi-privatize it. Whether the government presence is NASA, the FAA, or some sort of transition team is a detail. Back NASA out of day-to-day LEO access, but keep some facilities for it to do the things it should be doing.

re #2 - Oh, you mean that NASA funding legislation specifically forbidding them from doing anything at all with the TransHAB, or other (ATK-inspired, from Utah) legislation stopping transfer of money to SpaceX is a BAD idea? Who knew?

re #3 - I wonder what the shuttle would have looked like if DOD hadn't driven the design as hard as they did. (and then backed out of using it, after the damage was long done)

DOD influence on the Shuttle design kind of reminds me of US Navy influence on the commercial nuclear power generation market.

End of an era

[deadhammer]

Well America, it's up to India, China and Russia now. Leave the whole "space" and "discovery" and "dreams for the future" business to the up-and-comers. They'll take over the space exploration for you so you don't need to send people up or build space telescopes anymore. You've got more pressing, practical things to worry about! Terrorism, wars, economic stuff, that sort of thing. Good run guys!

I have to wonder... If North Korea suddenly announced that they had A) manned launch capability and B) plans to do a moon run in ten years, would America still decide that manned space travel was done and over with?

Re:End of an era

[Anonymous Coward]

If North Korea decided to do such a thing more power to them. It is a much better use of their resources than playing their stupid dick waving exercises with the South.

As far as American is concerned, been there, done that. They've already done the science (personally on the moon and remotely elsewhere), and there really isn't much of economic interest out there beyond LEO at this time.

Watching STS-135 was bittersweet for me.

[hey!]

I watched the STS-135 launch with my teenaged daughter a few minutes ago. I was only a few years older than she when I watched the STS-1 launch with a couple of my friends who stayed over my house for the even. We still had the Apollo era habit of watching all the televised launches.

It really did feel like a new beginning, the dawn of the era of (mostly) reusable spacecraft, just like in science fiction. The Shuttle may have turned out to be an abortive step toward the future, but it also accomplished a great deal and has important lessons for us, if we only have the will to learn them.

it's skylab all over again

[Thud457]

I hope the Russians can keep the ISS up on their own. As soon as Atlantis pulls away from it to return to Earth, the betting pool opens.

Re:it's skylab all over again

[ColdWetDog]

I hope the Russians can keep the ISS up on their own. As soon as Atlantis pulls away from it to return to Earth, the betting pool opens.

You now, If somebody at NASA had some big balls this could work to it's advantage.

Congresscritter: "We're shutting off funding for the ISS, the James Web Telescope and further research on Tang - we don't have the money."

Guido from NASA: "That's a nice city you have there. Shame for something to happen to it. You know, those reentry calculations are really quite difficult and it's easy to mess up the numbers. Better if we had enough money to ensure that sort of thing could never, ever happen."

Unfortunately, the next statement from the politician would be something along the line of "look, a pony!" - I doubt they would even begin to understand the concept. But it's a pleasant enough thought.

It would be fun to be part of the Space Enforcers....

Re:it's skylab all over again

[Anonymous Coward]

Wish I had mod points.....I'd try to do +1 Funny/Sad/Insightful.

Nostalgia

[Kozz]

I remember vividly the day we received the news in our elementary school via public address that the Challenger launch had a terrible ending. But there's been so much good stuff besides the relatively few (but so terrible) tragedies.

I decided to watch today's launch here at work. A co-worker slid over and asked, "Where are they going? The moon?" No joke. Made me kind of depressed that some people are so completely and blissfully ignorant of our space program.

Re:Nostalgia

[Anonymous Coward]

I watched the first Columiba launch on TV and I got to see the first Challenger launch in person. I'll never forget that cold winter day when the TV was turned on and there was an explosion where the Challenger used to be. I had a similar experiance at work this morning, watching the nasa.tv stream. A 20 something co-worker was at my desk and said, "I thought those space ship thingys all blew up."

A poignant reaction

[GPS Pilot]

Part of what Dennis Overbye wrote for the New York Times:

I no longer expect to see boot prints on Mars during my lifetime, nor do I expect that whoever eventually makes those boot prints will be drawing a paycheck from NASA, or even speaking English.

Re:A poignant reaction

[bill_mcgonigle]

I no longer expect to see boot prints on Mars during my lifetime, nor do I expect that whoever eventually makes those boot prints will be drawing a paycheck from NASA, or even speaking English.

Elon Musk wants to retire on Mars. He has billions and billions of dollars and a dream.

So far, he's hiring in the US. I imagine he's smart enough to hire the most efficient employees.

Whether his first words on Mars are English or Russian, I care not.

It was time.

[cadeon]

It was time to end it. Over 30 years the shuttle has done some great things, but NASA has failed to fix what was broken with the STS and failed to upgrade it properly. Privatization is the best thing we can do for space; government involvement has gotten to big, bloated, and stupid for real innovation.

Case and point- Mission Anomalies for STS-1- how many of these got properly fixed by the end of the program? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-1#Mission_anomalies

Re:It was time.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am okay with privatization, however, it privatization should not be the sole source of innovation. The benefit of having a society is that we can collectively tackle fundamental projects are socially beneficial but simply not commercially feasible. I can understand that we need an alternative to the space shuttles due to the cost, but with this last space shuttle flight, where is the replacement? I certainly don't see any private space shuttles or space vehicle even half as capable as the space shuttle.

I really feel like we're just slowly selling off the technological and financial foundation built by our forebears so we can continue to live our lazy debt laden, import driven, corporate dominated, religious fundamentalist, service sector life style.

Man, this is a sad day for American, not because it's the last space shuttle flight but because we did not have the foresight nor the political courage to have a replacement vehicle waiting at the next launch pad.

Re:It was time.

[sgage]

"Privatization is the best thing we can do for space; government involvement has gotten to big, bloated, and stupid for real innovation."

Is this some kind of religious mantra with people? Privatization might be fine for launching communications satellites, but other than that, any possible business model surely relies on government contracts. Sort of like it is now. Where is the profit motive in going to the Moon or Mars or anywhere else outside of LEO? There isn't one.

Re:It was time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but the methods for fulfilling those government contracts are less regulated and typically much more efficient than a pure government agency. This allows for innovation that's not currently possible- at least not possible without an act of congress, which won't happen due to needing to maintain jobs with existing contractors.

Re:It was time.

[DerekLyons]

Over 30 years the shuttle has done some great things, but NASA has failed to fix what was broken with the STS and failed to upgrade it properly.

NASA tried mightily - but NASA can only do what Congress and the Administration allow it do.
 

Case and point- Mission Anomalies for STS-1- how many of these got properly fixed by the end of the program? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-1#Mission_anomalies

All of them.

Re:It was time.

[Confusador]

He's not saying that government involvement is per se bad, or that private companies can do everything. He's saying that there is no government leadership who can do any of those things right now, and the current legislation coming out of congress is in fact harmful. In the face of that, privatization is the best we can do.

I think all of us would rather have a real, achievable, budgeted program for NASA as well. As it is, we'll have to leave the real exploration to the Chinese (and God bless them for it).

sound like anybody we know?

[Thud457]

your analogy is broken dude.
GDP : space shuttle program :: my salary : cost of new car

I seriously doubt I would even for a instant consider hitchhiking to work for three years if a new car was going to cost me $160 (~0.25% of GDP). Shit, for that, I could justify buying a minibike to play around with that I only use on nice weekends in the summer.

Instead, I'm using 90% of my salary to pay off my credit card interest, pay for health insurance ( not actual health care...) and buy M80's to blow up the neighbors with.
Man, am I a jackass...

Re:sound like anybody we know?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

your analogy is broken dude.
  GDP : space shuttle program :: my salary : cost of new car

Speaking of broken analogies... you do realize that NASA doesn't walk up and down the space shuttle lot just outside of town and say "hmmm... can you have that one ready by next week?"... right?

Re:sound like anybody we know?

[Thud457]

sorry, I was just running with shadowfaxcrx 's analogy.
You're right, the situation is more like my putting out a request for bids for a custom car with a lifetime support contract for $162 / year, that seems like an even sweeter deal.
Anyhow, I'm not sure how informative it is to model a country's budget as an individual's expenses, but it is amusing. Does make Unka Sam look sort of like a irrational psychopath though.

Re:sound like anybody we know?

[spitzak]

GDP : space shuttle program :: my salary : cost of new car

The government's "salary" (ie tax income) is 100% of the GDP? Dammit I'm going to join the Tea Party right now if that is true!

Re:sound like anybody we know?

[treeves]

It's within a factor of three, which is more than close enough for any astronomer.

Re:sound like anybody we know?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, even if you believe that NASA is criminally wasteful and inefficient, it's a small enough amount for something that's wildly popular among voters and gives us an excuse to believe we're #1 at something to just fund it under the "National Entertainment" slush fund. Even at a billion inflated dollars per launch, three launches per year comes out to about the price of a movie ticket per American. That's not to say it SHOULD cost a billion dollars per launch, but rather to put the total cost into perspective by relating the per-American cost to the cost of some other entertainment expense. ~300 million Americans x $10 apiece = $3 billion dollars.

Stop and think for a moment how many people who were at this morning's shuttle launch drove home sad and depressed because America now has approximately 2 weeks left to hold its head high and be proud of its elite status as a spacefaring nation. At the end of the day, even third-world countries can launch satellites, but only three countries have physically put men and women into space. It's an elite club, and our membership card expires the moment Atlantis lands.

IMHO, Obama and Congress should have *at least* partly saved the appearance of normalcy by purchasing a few Soyuz rockets from Russia, but insisting that they be physically launched from Cape Canaveral by NASA, with American astronauts (and the usual guests). Even if 90% of the staff ended up being Russian contractors treating it as a high-paying temp job, it would have avoided the fact that we now have, well, *nothing* until SpaceX (hopefully) has its rockets ready in a few more years and let everyone pretend we still have a meaningful space program.

Re:sound like anybody we know?

[shadowfaxcrx]

Clearly. Frankly, none of this is NASA's fault. The elected-government changes their mission as often as some people change socks. "Go to the moon! OK you got there now stop! Scrap everything! For chrissakes don't even THINK of building on that technology to do something bigger with it! Start all over again! Build a shuttle! OK now stop with the shuttle! Go to Mars! Well, no, don't go to Mars, go to an asteroid. And THEN go to Mars. Some time. Maybe. If I find some change under the couch cushions."

With such schizophrenic funding and marching orders from up top, it's no wonder NASA can't get anything done. Frankly it's a miracle they got what they got out of the shuttles.

All this was a long way of making the point that you're right: You don't just order up a new shuttle and have it on the launch pad by Thursday. Which is why it would have been really nice if NASA had been allowed to continue development of the next-gen space plane instead of dumping a squillion dollars into the design phase and then scrapping it before the first bolt was turned.But that was scrapped ("whooeee! We's a-goin' t' Mars!") and now we're stuck without a launch vehicle because of bullshit political whims.

Re:sound like anybody we know?

[Anonymous Coward]

"America now has approximately 2 weeks left to hold its head high and be proud of its elite status as a space faring nation" This is 100% bullshit. How many countries have reached the moon or will anytime soon? How many countries have deployed reusable space vehicles or will anytime soon? What country controls the largest multi-purpose satellite network? What country controls the majority of deep space telescopes both on earth and in orbit? What country has put rovers on Mars? The US could stop all space related activity tomorrow and it will still take about 25 years for any other country to rack up the same type of accomplishments. Let the Russians worry about ferrying people to the ISS. The X-37 OTV reusable space plane is unmanned but it has already successfully completed missions since 2010. All I have heard from other countries about their space programs are plans to do this or do that but nobody has actually did anything. I know it's bad form these days to say anything positive about the US but saying the US will no longer be a member of the elite begs the question of who exactly are these other elites? It seems like US gets less respect for actually doing something then the other countries get for just making plans.

Re:sound like anybody we know?

[Anonymous Coward]

Update: after sleeping off yesterday's post-launch depression (amidst general sleep deprivation) and hitting Google over breakfast, it appears the situation isn't quite as dire as it seemed last night. They've done a poor job of getting the word out, but apparently:

* SpaceX has prominent American flags on everything they launch, and views itself as America's 2.0 space program (with emphasis on "America's").

* SpaceX plans to launch most of its manned flights from Cape Canaveral

This matters, because if they can take over NASA's public relations role and keep the taxpaying American public entertained with regular launches from a facility that (intentionally or accidentally) happens to be an easy (well, on a non-launch day) drive from America's #1 vacation destination, dollars from Congress to pay NASA to give SpaceX lots of repeat business will keep flowing.

It's just kind of a shame that they missed 3 golden public relations opportunities to get the word out. It's hard to think of something that would have been cheaper or more effective than printing postcard-sized receipts offering free parking at participating lots (reimbursed by SpaceX to the lot owners) for the Dragon's first manned launch (max $10 or the actual amount paid by the person to park for the shuttle launch), then having them distributed by the major commercial lots in downtown Titusville as parking receipts. 99.9% of them would have never been redeemed (if only because because they got lost or forgotten on the Dragon's next launch day, or kept as souvenirs), but it would have clearly gotten the word out that the shuttles won't be the last manned vehicles to launch from Cape Canaveral.

Video?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there a recording of the launch available anywhere yet? I got pulled into a meeting literally 10 minutes before the launch and missed it.

Re:Video?

[underlord_999]

You can go to NASA TV at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

They typically will replay the launch highlights on the first evening when the crew goes to bed and repeat every hour until the start of the next flight day.

Tonight's flight day highlights will start at 8:00 PM Central Time. At 10PM tonight they will have a special video on the history of the program.

On subsequent days, they will replay 'Flight Day NN' highlights in the same manner (once per hour on either the hour or half-hour mark, after the crew goes to sleep).

Also, about 5-6 days into a mission, NASA will release a compilation video they put together that includes outstanding launch imagery and sounds, taken from ground-based cameras, the solid socket boosters (SRB), and from the External Tank (ET) looking at the underside of the shuttle orbiter towards the tail.

They even include pictures taken from the Shuttle Orbiter herself using a camera in the liquid oxygen umbilical well, taking pictures as the external tank falls away into the atmosphere, as well video taken by the crew at the ISS as the orbiter does the elegant Rendezvous-Pitch-Maneuver (aka the backflip) on approach to the international space station.

Google for "STS-nnn ASCENT IMAGERY HIGHLIGHTS" in a few days (where nnn is 135 for this mission, but those of 134 and 133 were also spectacular.)

Highly recommended!

Does anybody here actually follow NASA?

[ModernGeek]

Does nobody here see the retirement of the shuttle as a good thing? I for one love where NASA is going, and with the shuttle gone we are closer to seeing the Multi Purpose Crew Vehicle headed for deep space.

Re:Does anybody here actually follow NASA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does nobody here see the retirement of the shuttle as a good thing? I for one love where NASA is going, and with the shuttle gone we are closer to seeing the Multi Purpose Crew Vehicle headed for deep space.

I'm not a fan of retiring anything before the replacement is ready. The shuttle gone doesn't get us any closer to the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle. It just puts us in a situation where we can delay our return to space even further, as that particular project gets delayed and/or cancelled. If we had shuttle replacements ready, then yes, retiring the shuttle would have been great.

Re:Does anybody here actually follow NASA?

[Paul Fernhout]

The fundamental problem with the space shuttle concept is that mass in orbit is worth more than its weight in gold, so it is pointless to bring that mass back to Earth in the form of a space shuttle. A minimal return capsule like with Apollo for crew makes more sense. Even now, the best place for the shuttles to be kept is probably in space, docked to the space station, where they could be used as living space or raw materials for future projects. The whole idea was stupid energetically. Also, as anyone who watches "This Old House" knows, new construction is generally cheaper than renovations, and so it would have been much cheaper to keep churning out new rocket than to renovate the space shuttle after every trip. While people hoped for more with reuseable space shuttles, these two basic problems made the whole concept problematical.

With that said, I can still be sad about the ending of an era, and for the people who will lose their jobs and the work communities they belonged to.

Ideally, the retirement of the shuttle may free up funds for new innovative projects, I hope. But with the US budget such a mess, it's hard to know that for sure.

Re:Does anybody here actually follow NASA?

[BJ_Covert_Action]

I do, but apparently it is trendy to be nostaligically emo on /. today. Go figure.

Here's to the next generation of space exploration!

The 2nd Assassination of JFK

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out http://www.youtube.com/lastshuttle free documentary on youtube this week (from 5pm ET) a great retrospective and emotional look at the shuttle program.

Have some pics from a slashdotter...

[Anonymous Coward]

I was there, and shot some photos. [flickr letterbox'ed slideshow]

Yearning

[deathcloset]

That is depressing.

Humanitarianism is my bag. I love people, even with all our ignorance and hypocrisy I truly believe (based on evidence) 99% of people are 99% heart. Even the 'dumbest' people I've spoken with never fail to enlighten me of my own ignorances and hypocries - and thus I grow!

People are good. Homo sapiens are good. Cultures....

Despite my optimism, however, lately I'm becoming convinced that we must evolve (like literally change genetically or mentally or physically) before we can persist in space, indefinitely independent of mother earth. I'm almost convinced this evolution must be to the degree of speciation...but I dare not tread on that ground...or dare I?

I'm going to wax poetic and philosophical here, forgive me. These are my thoughts - maybe they belong in my journal, but here they are.

Humanity is turning it's focus inward. This is not necessarily bad. I hope, and do believe ( weakly I must admit) that this is a global 'soul searching' time - but I must accept the possibility that we might instead be 'navel gazing' ourselves away.

Africa, 50,000 years ago. Some people moving north-east or north-west maybe noticed it was getting colder, but it was worth it to get away. Away from whatever it was they left - probably the same thing we always leave, bad environments both natural and man-made. Some moved only so far and then stayed where they were, they didn't want it to get colder.

Some of them, however, kept going, despite the harshness.

The Explorers.

New frontiers are discovered by Explorers, populated by Escapers and developed by Exploiters: the three E's.

We needed only to evolve our culture to survive in those harsh areas, and a little bit of selection helped in other subtle ways. Nowadays it is different.

There is no more land. There are no places on earth for the explorers, the escapers and the exploiters to go. We can't run away from bad societies like we have for millennia...

So we are forced, for the first time in Earth's history, to fix the whole world or leave it.

I hope, and believe, we can, and will, do both.

The Shuttle Program: what did we learn?

[recharged95]

just the right time allowed everything to proceed as planned

What did we learn from the Shuttle program?

a. You can't control the weather
b. Schedules are just that, schedules. Don't fall in love with it.
c. Timing is everything, and not a science.... yet.
d. It's all about the initial conditions.

Optimistic

[bill_mcgonigle]

If you remain one of these people who doesn't think today is depressing as fuck, I'd like some of what you're having.

Today I'm drinking to the free market.

Re:Optimistic

[Captain Splendid]

You know, you may be partially right.

I was imagining a few more years of little-noted test flights and then, nothing.

But wouldn't it be awesome if we did actually get a viable space tourism market for a good 10-15 years? Watching chucklehead millionaires ride around in their spiffily-named speedboats as the rest of us here on planet earth continue getting fucked over?

I'll laugh so hard if that happens.

Re:Optimistic

[bill_mcgonigle]

But wouldn't it be awesome if we did actually get a viable space tourism market for a good 10-15 years? Watching chucklehead millionaires ride around in their spiffily-named speedboats as the rest of us here on planet earth continue getting fucked over?

Your comment could be read in a few different ways. I hope you're not suggesting that access to outer space is a human right or something. Even if you were, millionaires flying about space is much closer to that end than needing to be a military test pilot.

Human spaceflight is now where the Internet was in 1994 when the Governments stopped trying to run it. Buckle up.

Re:Optimistic

[Captain Splendid]

Human spaceflight is now where the Internet was in 1994 when the Governments stopped trying to run it. Buckle up.

I wish that you were right. Like you couldn't even imagine.

But I just don't see a viable Space Industry, at any stage of development, here on Earth. Call me when you have one, and I'll come poke some more holes in it.

last shuttle launch

[Anonymous Coward]

so if this is the last shuttle launch what will they send up now?