Last Shuttle Launch (for Discovery)

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Nasa TV

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

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[CaptainCrunch]

I thought there was one more after this one.

[WilsonFourTwo]

I'm really happy to see the Shuttle Program come to an end. It was an OK program overall, but it seemed like it was never quite as good as it could (should?) have been.

Now we have an opportunity to decide whether to abandon space flight/travel, or get freakin' serious about it.

PS - Thoughts and appreciation go out to everyone connected with the Shuttle Program, particularly those who didn't make it home.

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Should go @ 2:50 pm

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by WilsonFourTwo

Now we have an opportunity to decide whether to abandon space flight/travel, or get freakin' serious about it.

How serious can we really get about it when we can't break the light barrier? Everything is so far away.

[Hack&Lube]

The Shuttle program never lived up to it's billing. The Shuttles were supposed to be rapidly reusable and make up for their costs by being able to be sent up once every month for scientific missions or for deploying commercial and military satellites. In the long run, that proved to be impossible and Shuttles only went up once or twice a year.

In the end, they turned out to be unreliable, massively expensive, and most satellites were cheaper sent up by conventional rocket.

[WilsonFourTwo]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I thought there was one more after this one.

Each of the three shuttles is supposed to have a final mission this year, with this being Discovery's final launch.

Endeavor is STS134 and Atlantis is STS135 remain, although I hear that 135 may not be funded.

[Hack&Lube]

On the topic of space flight and disasters, one thing that always interested me was the lost cosmonauts.

In the early days of the space race, for political and propaganda reasons, the Russians covered up many missions that were not deemed successes. Yuri Gagarin was likely not the first to orbit earth, he was just the first one the Russians could brag about returning successfully and therefore hailed as the first. Others were not so lucky and burned up in the atmosphere or crashed. Some may have been prevented from returning because conditions would have led to them landing in foreign territory.

http://www.lostcosmonauts.com/default.htm

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

On the topic of space flight and disasters, one thing that always interested me was the lost cosmonauts.

In the early days of the space race, for political and propaganda reasons, the Russians covered up many missions that were not deemed successes. Yuri Gagarin was likely not the first to orbit earth, he was just the first ones the Russians could brag about returning successfully and therefore hailed as the first. Others were not so lucky and burned up in the atmosphere or crashed. Some may have been prevented from returning because conditions would have led to them landing in foreign territory.

http://www.lostcosmonauts.com/default.htm

I've seen this website get debunked quite a bit on other forums, so I would take the Italian brothers claims with a grain of salt.

[WilsonFourTwo]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

How serious can we really get about it when we can't break the light barrier? Everything is so far away.

I'm really excited at the notion of prolonged space travel, even though I think trying to establish a moon colony or spend a few years on Mars is over-reaching by a fair margin (right now).

I would LOVE to see a generation of rockets and instruments dedicated to researching our Solar System - long before we send people anywhere.

[Bigtime]

If we could break past needing rockets to get anything of substance into orbit I think then we'll start to see some real solid progress in branching out from Earth.

Where's my PAN-AM spaceplane to the orbiting space station dammit?

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

I've seen this website get debunked quite a bit on other forums, so I would take the Italian brothers claims with a grain of salt.

I don't know if it's true or not but it would not surprise me. There was another more professional looking site out there that I couldn't find with interviews with NASA personnel that backed this up and a story of the Italian brothers visiting NASA as well and the engineers being surprised they could track their launches but I can't find it anymore.

It could always be just another conspiracy myth but I enjoyed reading about it.

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April 19th for Endeavor

June 28th for Atlantis

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by WilsonFourTwo

I'm really excited at the notion of prolonged space travel, even though I think trying to establish a moon colony or spend a few years on Mars is over-reaching by a fair margin (right now).

I would LOVE to see a generation of rockets and instruments dedicated to researching our Solar System - long before we send people anywhere.

I want to send a probe that we could shoot off into deep space by blowing up a nuke behind it. Now that would have some speed! A nuclear based propulsion system on a spacecraft would be awesome too.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

I want to send a probe that we could shoot off into deep space by blowing up a nuke behind it. Now that would have some speed! A nuclear based propulsion system on a spacecraft would be awesome too.

Yeah, that wouldn't really work that well.
If you blow up a nuke in space you get a lot of radiation, but since there is no atmosphere up there, there is no shockwave to actully propell a spacecraft, so the thing would hardly move at all.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz

Yeah, that wouldn't really work that well.
If you blow up a nuke in space you get a lot of radiation, but since there is no atmosphere up there, there is no shockwave to actully propell a spacecraft, so the thing would hardly move at all.

Good point. Get a collider in space and use anti-matter. Lol.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz

Yeah, that wouldn't really work that well.
If you blow up a nuke in space you get a lot of radiation, but since there is no atmosphere up there, there is no shockwave to actully propell a spacecraft, so the thing would hardly move at all.

Ahem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project..._propulsion%29

[WhiteTiger]

This is kind of a bit of a death of a childhood dream. I always wanted to go up in one of those shuttles, and "astronaut" was high on the career list for a long, long time.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by WhiteTiger

This is kind of a bit of a death of a childhood dream. I always wanted to go up in one of those shuttles, and "astronaut" was high on the career list for a long, long time.

Start saving up for Virgin Galactic? I'd love to take that trip, even though it couldn't compare to being up in the shuttle for a bunch of time.

[CaptainCrunch]

Its too bad because the Shuttle program was suppossed to lead to the cheaper exploration of space, instead we moved into a more exploitation of space.

I'm sure we all envisioned launching manned missions from space and eventual bases on the moon.

but the shuttle program really shifted mankind away from at least looking beyond our own planet.

I remember that they were talking about the next steps to Mars in the 70's, now we're not talking about it anymore, and NASA's been gutted.

And I get that we can't get to the speed of light, but is that really the goal right now, or is the goal to find a way to lay human eyes and human feet beyond the earth and the moon?