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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.
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.
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
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.
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.