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View Full Version : STS-133 The final landing of space shuttle Discovery



Max
03-09-2011, 09:04 PM
I placed this here because it's both news and a current event

Thanks for the great adventure, Discovery. You have served well, and will be missed.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RmhK_nHKiQ

Deepsepia
03-09-2011, 10:51 PM
I placed this here because it's both news and a current event

Thanks for the great adventure, Discovery. You have served well, and will be missed.


Oh, I've gotta spoil the moment and say something curmodgeonly.

It was basically mediocre engineering on the day it was built, and as time wore on only became more obsolete. Two disasters out of five vehicles and 100 some odd flights (at $1.5 billion per) is not exactly a sterling record.

Not only did the Shuttle kill a lot of people, it also destroyed NASA's budgets. Instead of doing real space science, scarce dollars got poured down this dangerous rathole.

Hal-9000
03-10-2011, 02:02 AM
something like 30 missions?

despite Deep's observations on the program that's quite the record for one vehicle :thumbsup:

Max
03-10-2011, 02:18 AM
something like 30 missions?

despite Deep's observations on the program that's quite the record for one vehicle :thumbsup:

Yeah, and I don't see the point in getting into a debate about dollars and technology. America these days has so very little left that we can call national pride. I think our space program has been one of those, and I honor those who have sacrificed all for the purpose of reaching out to the unknown.

Hal...the total actual time spent in orbit by discovery was neary a full year. That's amazing.

FBD
03-10-2011, 01:44 PM
:roll: always looking for the black edge of the silver lining

AntZ
03-10-2011, 02:08 PM
:roll: always looking for the black edge of the silver lining

Wait! :hand:

What if we canceled the program and used all those billions for the needy? :-k


We would have no space program, even bigger slums, and an even bigger percentage of the population believing that this is a nanny state then there is now! :tup:


Just think of the liberal utopia that could have been?? :usa:

Teh One Who Knocks
03-10-2011, 02:17 PM
Sorry, but as much as I love our space program and I truly salute all the astronauts that were a part of the shuttle program, I agree with Deep on this one. I want to see man land on another planet, or at least have made it back to the moon, but instead we sank all our space exploration budget into the shuttle program.

It's rather disappointing that we as nation have seemed to have regressed in terms of space exploration, not progressed. We are doing less now in the 21st century than NASA was doing in the 1960's/70's with A LOT less technology at their disposal. The PC I am typing this post on is more powerful than the computers used in the Apollo missions yet we can't even get a man back on the moon or develop a way to travel to Mars yet?

FBD
03-10-2011, 02:20 PM
If we didnt spend so goddam much on entitlements, we'd have been able to do a hell of a lot more

Softdreamer
03-10-2011, 02:20 PM
like all forerunners in aeronautics/aerospace its expensive, unreliable, instantly obsolete and unjustifiably adored.

The particular joke with the Shuttle program, is the lack of its replacement. Technology needs to be in the private sector to advance to be driven forward at an acceptable rate.


Unless of course your Chinese :D:mrgreen:[-(

Teh One Who Knocks
03-10-2011, 02:49 PM
The particular joke with the Shuttle program, is the lack of its replacement.

Exactly....canceling the program with no viable replacement in the foreseeable future is worse than wasting the money on keeping the aging shuttle fleet flying to begin with.

Arkady Renko
03-10-2011, 04:02 PM
I'm in two minds as well. What the program achieved ist pretty phenomenal and I suppose the value for the american national spirit is priceless. Remember how all or most of the missions were part of the main evening news with live coverage and whatnot, I think stuff like that is really important for a nation. It helps offset the unsteady flow of GIs in boxes or bags coming home from useless wars.

But the prcetag is simply insane.

Max
03-10-2011, 10:00 PM
I see the pros and cons being adressed here, and respect everyone's opinions.

On a broader note, I would say that the space program in general has prompted the development of technologies which have benefited all people. I have no idea if any great breakthroughs will ever come from those working on the ISS, but one thing is for sure...it would have been virtually impossible to build without the shuttle fleet. The fleet has also seeded and serviced many types of satellites into orbit and beyond. I'd like to hope they have benefited humanity in some manner. If not for the shuttles, the wonderful Hubble space telescope would have become useless long ago, and that piece of equipment has has furthered our understanding of the universe by leaps and bounds...and continues to do so.

I guess there's always the questions about where the large sums of money could/should have been spent. I would personally like to see the US stop sending out billions each year to prop up foreign governments so they remain strategic friends, and allow us to have bases. It's basically bribery, and the investment over the decades would probably cancel the national debt. It's a waste of money, and many of those nations are little more than corrupt dictatorships. I can make a list a mile long on vital things my country needs which should definitely be higher on the spending list than funneling money to Saudi Arabia, Iraq or Israel.

The cheapest and most cost effective way to explore space is with robotics. I think that's where our focus should be. They give the most bang for the buck. I know it's glamorous to have humans walk on other worlds, but to what end? I see no reason for a lunar base that would justify billions of dollars, nor do I see any need to land men on asteroids or Mars. The ideas are cool, yes...but what do we get for the gargantuan investment?

I guess many argue that we don't need any kind of space program, and that we should focus our finances on domestic matters. I see their point, but I also think humans have a basic need to reach beyond their grasp, and seek knowledge. Our world would be a much different place if not for explorers.

Anyhoo, Regardless of the cost, the program is about over now, and future historians will deabte whether the money was worth it. They do the same thing today concerning the fortune spent to beat the Soviets to the moon.

I definitely think the private sector should play a big part of space activities.

Hal-9000
03-10-2011, 10:24 PM
on a lighter note...I've always wondered about farting on the shuttle.They don't have to wear the big bulky suits but are still in a contained environment.You could get your pal with a good one for HOURS :thumbsup:

Teh One Who Knocks
03-10-2011, 10:30 PM
on a lighter note...I've always wondered about farting on the shuttle.They don't have to wear the big bulky suits but are still in a contained environment.You could get your pal with a good one for HOURS :thumbsup:

Just open a window, duh :rolleyes:

Hal-9000
03-10-2011, 10:43 PM
:sad2:

I rarely think before I post, sorry

Teh One Who Knocks
03-10-2011, 10:44 PM
It's okay, not everyone knows as much about space flight as I do :)

Arkady Renko
03-10-2011, 11:39 PM
on a lighter note...I've always wondered about farting on the shuttle.They don't have to wear the big bulky suits but are still in a contained environment.You could get your pal with a good one for HOURS :thumbsup:

I think we've all seen what happened when someone lit a match to kill the stink.

Hal-9000
03-10-2011, 11:47 PM
It's okay, not everyone knows as much about space flight as I do :)

Steven Wright - If you are in a spaceship that is traveling at the speed of light, and you turn on the headlights, does anything happen?

Arkady Renko
03-10-2011, 11:52 PM
yeah, the ship will be slowed down a tiny bit. It's the recoil from the headlights that does it.

Deepsepia
03-11-2011, 12:32 AM
Exactly....canceling the program with no viable replacement in the foreseeable future is worse than wasting the money on keeping the aging shuttle fleet flying to begin with.

It doesn't need to be replaced, because it doesn't actually do anything of value.

Notice how many of the missions are devoted to "proving how men can live and work in space"?

The sad truth is that the entire manned space program has produced very little of scientific merit.

The unmanned program, on the other hand, has produced incredible discoveries.

Astronauts are what they were known to be, way back in the 1960s -- spam in a can.

Notice how the military is very quickly switching to unmanned vehicles for all sorts of things. They're doing the same thing in space.

It passed without too much notice, but even as the Shuttle program ends, the Air Force has their unmanned space plane up and running.



After being delayed a day by bad weather, the U.S. Air Force's second X-37B robotic space plane blasted off from Florida this afternoon (March 5) on a mystery mission shrouded in secrecy.

The unmanned X-37B mini-shuttle — known as Orbital Test Vehicle 2 (OTV-2) — took to the skies from Cape Canaveral at 5:46 p.m. EST (2246 GMT) today, tucked away in the nose cone atop a huge Atlas 5 rocket.

"Liftoff of the Atlas 5 rocket and the second experimental X-37B, America's miniature military space shuttle," the Air Force Space Command wrote in a Twitter post as the Atlas 5 streaked into the Florida skies.

The space plane was originally scheduled to launch yesterday, but cloudy, windy conditions scrubbed two attempts. And a technical glitch caused the X-37B to miss a launch window earlier this afternoon; a faulty valve had to be replaced in a last-minute repair.

The X-37B's mission is classified, but Air Force officials have said the vehicle will be used to test out new spacecraft technologies. Shortly after launch, the mission went into a scheduled media blackout, with no futher public updates.

Today's launch marks the start of the X-37B program's second space mission. The Air Force's other X-37B plane, known as OTV-1, returned to Earth in December 2010 after a similarly mysterious seven-month maiden mission.
http://www.space.com/11031-secret-x37b-space-plane-launch.html


note: Seven month maiden voyage!

Get rid of the astronauts, and space exploration is much easier, much cheaper, and much more reliable

http://www.space.com/images/i/155/i02/x-37b-space-plane-100415-02.jpg