Slashdot Mirror
Space Shuttle Endeavor Lands In Los Angeles After Final Flight
Today the space shuttle Endeavor completed its final ferry flight, landing in Los Angeles, California after leaving Edwards Air Force Base earlier today. The shuttle will now undergo preparations for its journey through the streets of L.A. (at a cost of 400+ trees) to its final resting place at the California Science Center. It'll go on public display October 30. Endeavor spent over 296 days in space throughout 25 missions, comprising 4,671 orbits that added up to over 197 million kilometers of travel. Slashdot's own Kaushik Acharya was at the Griffith Observatory in L.A. for the flyover, and he provided some great pictures of Endeavor's passing.
Nice low-level flight right over Berkeley.
My kid was in class, heard the sound of the low-level flight, and they all saw it right out of the classroom window.
Gee, the end of an era. We could have had so much more. It's good that we have SpaceX doing something sensible about space flight, and NASA funding enough of that, but I think we learned one sad lesson from the Space Program: You can't trust the American electorate and their political representatives to do what's important for the future of the species.
Bruce Perens.
I was @LAX, and saw the fly-overs and the landing there. Great crowd.
http://youtu.be/qV_nNPX7qUo?hd=1
They seem to be the only ones capable of doing anything anymore. May as well let them do that too.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Gee, as it turns out, I cannot even spell 'endeavour' correctly. Goddamn, Muphry's Law.
Clicked pie.
I just happened to be on US 50 in the Sacramento area when it flew overhead. Traffic slowed to a crawl to get a peek, some people just stopped. Very cool that these things can cause that type of reaction - even as they're being mothballed.
Unfortunately the spectacle caused more than a few fender benders.
No NASA manned flights. We're stuck hitching rides from the Russians. The Chinese will be sure to be kicking our asses in 10-20 years.
Hull.
Hull? Not going there, I'm afraid- it narrowly lost out to Los Angeles.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
planes have more of a average crash rate then the shuttle did...just FYI
Twitter was nearly useless, with all the chaff and incomplete information "It's over my house! #spottheshuttle" Where is your house?!? Blah blah blah I'm standing on a roof and NASA coverage, which was replays of the previous day's flight. We finally found a USTREAM from Ames and after watching it pass out of the frame we all scampered outside to wait, as it wouldn't be long. Finally spotted it and I got a few pictures. Probably the most photographed object in the world, today.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I just wanted to say that I am really surprised, but happy, at how much interest the last shuttle flight has caused. I thought this nation had forgotten about space exploration, but apparently I was wrong. It's nice to have a little bit of my faith in the future of this country restored.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.klydemorris.com/strips.cfm?strip_ID=2362
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
it was in low earth orbit NOT space
How do you define "space," exactly?
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Some pics of the SCA and Endeavor flying over KSC and the rocket garden.
The guy next to me was shooting video, watching it today I forgot how loud it was. It was a great moment.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I was at Edwards AFB yesterday when it landed. I can get to a couple great spots, so I took some great pictures. Here are some of the highlights.
You got it wrong. He was talking about this place and the shuttle flew over that city quite a while ago. On top of a 747 of course. It was just a kind of PR stunt to show the shuttle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_quebec
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
But lets face it..the shuttle was a megaflop.
It was SUPPOSED to be a "space truck" that could take both the military (thus saving money) and civilian loads while having a fast enough turnaround time to make space travel truly economical but that's NOT what we ended up with. What we got was a ship that had too small a bed for military payloads, which meant we had to pay for Atlas for the military as well as the shuttle, and as we found the rigors of spaceflight meant that the inspections and work required to get it ready for another flight slowed things down too much to ever make it economical, finally they were supposed to be retired by 86 but because we never could settle on a replacement we kept sending up these aging birds until they finally started falling apart.
Frankly if we can't get the Apollo system back on line economically we ought to just fricking buy Soyuz. I'm sure the Russians would be happy to license their designs and sell us some rockets, we've been using their engines in our rockets for awhile now, why not just go all the way? It'll save us a ton of time and cash, the Russians will be happy for the checks, its a win/win as far as I can see and saves us having to hitch rides just to get anything done. The only other choice I see is man rating the Atlas or Delta rockets which who knows how much that'll cost.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
You can't trust the American electorate and their political representatives to do what's important for the future of the species.
For most of us here on Slashdot, space exploration is cool, exciting, motivating, and instills a sense of pride and adventure in ourselves as humans.
But I get so tired of this idea that space travel is important to the future of our species. Even if the only way we could survive would be through an exodus to other worlds, how does that solve the problems that would lead us to such an exodus? Until we become more enlightened here on Earth and make some progress in the nature of the human heart, we will only bring those problems with us.
What the heck is so important about the survival of our species anyway? Hopefully we'll involve into something more than we are now, but if we die out, that won't be so unusual as far as species go. Do we consider it a tragedy that the dinosaurs evolved into birds? Compared to the vastness, mystery, and awesomeness of the Universe as a whole, we're really insignificant.
I doubt that we're the only intelligent beings in the galaxy, let alone the entire Universe; there are probably many more to fulfill whatever purpose we have, if any, as sentient, self-aware, curious observers and participants in the evolution of the Universe. If they've managed to solve the problem of interstellar travel, they're probably praying that we'll become more civilized before we escape the bounds of our planet.
I certainly hope not. The Space Shuttle program had 135 flights with 2 losses (1.4%). There are around airplane 90,000 flights in the US daily. If airplanes were as safe as the Space Shuttle, half a million planes would crash per year.
I agree, it's nuts to cut down the trees (which will take years to replace, if ever) when they could have removed the wings temporarily. It's not as if it needs to be put back into flying condition.
Street trees last about 50 years and then are in general too sick to remain. Some of these went sooner than that, but the museum is replacing 1000 trees that will live 50 years now.
Bruce Perens.
After taking off from the Shuttle Landing Facility runway at KSC the Shuttle and Shuttle Carrier Aircraft looped around and did a 200 ft flyby down the runway. Pretty neat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOYoiIxZgO4
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
You just have to look at how badly JSC allowed the Saturn V to deteriorate to have some idea why it didn't go to Houston.
--Carlos V.
It's named after a British sea ship, so British spelling applies, as reflected on the actual craft.
Anybody want a peanut?
They've promised to replant twice the number of trees. It was part of the deal.
I am inspired by spaceships a LOT more when they are actually flying into space.
I was at LA's Griffith Observatory today for the flyover, and the crowd was not only massive (not only was every Griffith Park parking space filled, but also the nearby Greek Theater's parking lot), but it was very diverse. Young, old, in-between. A broad mix of races and probably economic level as well. Let's not forget, these people, and everyone else who went to a flyover area, were pumped for NASA, and for a symbol of an America that they can be proud of. Yes, certainly there was a novelty factor at play of a Space Shuttle flying around on top of a frickin 747, but regardless it was capturing their attention and imagination.
Looking at these people around me, it really struck me that there's a giant disconnect in how they view NASA in comparison to how Congress and the President(s) view it. People see NASA as a tool for exploration, a window to discovery, and a symbol of America's leadership and greatness in technological innovation. Our government often sees NASA at best as a way to put jobs in local districts, and at worst as an organization they try to starve because they can't get rid of it. Thank the universe that Curiosity landed in one piece, because it shone light on a NASA that was half-buried in the backyard. On the other hand, NASA recently chose to send another geology mission to Mars instead of sending a lander to float in a Titan sea. NASA needs to capture the public's imagination. The Curiosity Twitter account has been inundated by questions from the public on why Curiosity doesn't include a microphone in order to listen to the sounds of Mars; the stock answer is that a microphone doesn't fulfill a science need. Well half of the Apollo missions included activities by their astronauts that had no science goal. The goal was capturing the spirit of wonder. NASA must keep that in mind if it is to stay viable, let alone flourish, in the harsh budgetary environment it finds itself in.
British spelling is a horse of a different colour.
Bruce Perens.
Frankly if we can't get the Apollo system back on line economically we ought to just fricking buy Soyuz.
I believe skipping the Apollo system altogether would be the far better choice at least until there's enough demand. For me, that threshold would be at least ten launches a year. And it seems to me that one is forgetting US launch vehicles here such as Falcon 9 and Atlas 5.
Frankly if we can't get the Apollo system back on line economically we ought to just fricking buy Soyuz.
Why on Earth would someone want that? Check out SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon spacecraft; both seem to be pretty solid machines, and they are cheaper. Actually, I will not be surprised to see ISS crews scheduled to launch in 2016-2017 training to use Dragons instead of Soyuz. On a side note, there are some very fundamental problems with the Russian space industry at the moment, and alas I don't see them being fixed anytime soon.
Why is that a bad thing? That's like saying the US does not have the capability anymore to build zeppelins or Model T Fords..
The only reason to go to the moon is if we get a working fusion reactor that requires Helium 3. Other than that, what is the point? Other than He3 it has no natural resources worth going there for.
What I still fail to get is why the heck are they wasting payload on making the rockets re-useable. Getting anything from 0 to 18,500 mph takes a LOT of energy so you design things to be as light as possible. If your engine needs to work for 6 minutes you design it to work for 6 minutes plus a safety margin.
Rocket engines are like Top-Fuel Drag racer engines. After every run you have to completely rebuild the engine. Why don't they build the engine to be stronger so they don't have to? Because it would be too heavy to put in a drag racer. ANY additional weight can have a nasty cascade effect. To add that extra pound of weight can require several pounds of fuel which then requires a larger fuel tank which is heavier which requires a more powerful engine. all of which weighs more and requires even more fuel, starting the cycle all over again.
I reload my own ammunition, let me demonstrate the problem with some 22 caliber reloading data.
To accelerate a 40 grain bullet to 2900 fps requires 12 grains of propellant.
To accelerate a 55 grain bullet to 3200 fps requires 26 grains of propellant.
To accelerate a 35 grain bullet to 5100 fps requires 46 grains of propellant.
To double the velocity of an object requires 4 times the energy. Thus the need to make everything as light as possible in a rocket. As you can see in the last example, the propellant weight soon exceeds the weight of the payload.
Other than He3 it has no natural resources worth going there for.
Less delta v and energy required to achieve either Earth orbit or one of the Lagrange points. It has a variety of useful metals (aluminum, iron, titanium, etc) and oxygen, which is a human consumable and likely to be a propellant in chemical engines for quite some time to come.
...who realizes that flying a modified 747 in landing configuration carrying a 75 ton payload on its back with wheels up at low altitudes over populated areas is extremely dangerous, totally irresponsible, and completely illegal if anyone other than NASA did it? Thanks for risking hundreds of lives to show off Mr. Biden. Your incompetence is only outweighed by your arrogance. BTW, I love the space program, and I want people to learn about its history, but this really was a questionable stunt that has me worried about the complacency of our leadership.
The entire rationale of a reusable spacecraft was predicated on the assumption that we'd have weekly launches. The initial concept of the program foresaw 50+ launches a year. That was the only way to justify the cost of the massive support organization needed to inspect and refurbish the orbiters after each flight, vs. ordinary single-use rockets. Unfortunately, we never came close to that, averaging 4.5 launches per year. Consequently, the Shuttle became the cadillac of launch vehicles. Its lifetime per-launch cost works out to just over $10,000 per kg of payload, vs. $3000-$5000 per kg for other launch vehicles, with Falcon X approaching $2000/kg.
They are a marvel of engineering, and the iconic face of space travel for over a quarter century. But they were also white elephants which consumed half or more of NASA's budget, harming multiple other missions whose primary goal was science instead of putting people into orbit. Don't blame the politicians for killing the program. Blame them for not funding a replacement as soon as it became obvious we weren't going to get anywhere close to 50 launches/yr. Instead they hemmed and hawed, until the Shuttles were forced into retirement because their components began exceeding their lifetime expectancy certification. And the politicians still haven't decided on a replacement.
Wrong. The space shuttle had a horrific safety record. 2 accidents costing human life in 135 flight cycles is much worse than any production airplane used for air transport. Actually, by an exponential margin. Nobody would get on a 747 if 2 out of 135 or even 2 out of 135,000 flights resulted in a fatality.