STS-133 will, in theory, be the last shuttle flight ever. To commemorate, NASA allowed its employees to suggest the last shuttle patch design - and they have whittled it down to 15. Only NASA employees and contractors can vote, but wired has a link to show all 15 proposed designs. Crazy to think of no more shuttle missions. In my lifetime, it was space travel. I've had the pleasure of watching 747 flyovers when I was in elementary school and just a few years back. For ~three years I worked on the shuttle program and it was one of the coolest jobs I've ever had. I'll probably get more nostalgic as the date approaches, but for now - enjoy the patch designs and think about what an amazing feat the whole program is/was.
It will be sad when it ends. I still want to make a trip to see a launch before it ends. Hopefully I will on one of these last ones
It would be a lot easier to appreciate how amazing the program was if it wasn't for the recklessness that cost two crews their lives.
The legendary Apollo program was way more "reckless". But NASA was basically a government start-up then and have way more flexibility, freedom and exuberance. Government over-regulation these days will just about kill NASA human spaceflight, plus the fact that NASA is now filed with old guys instead of youth like the early days. The Constellation program / Orion spacecraft is nothing like it was initially supposed to be. The Ares rocket might be dead and Orion spacecraft has been shrunk and might be side-mounted on its rocket like the shuttle (instead of up top) - lame, another disaster waiting to happen. Again- politics and regulation. The next-gen spacecraft could be fully automated but that would cost public servants their jobs etc. That is why going to the moon this time will take twice as much time as it did 40 years ago, even though technology has advanced exponentially. It is time for the shuttle to go. I just wish Orion had the freedom to really kick some ass, instead of being bogged down in government bureaucracy.
I bet that this is untenable. Too much work goes into each shuttle launch. Once the winddown has started, I do not see how to easily stop that process. Key people will move on, if they have not already. Delivering payloads and personnelto the Space Station can be handled by the Russians (at a fraction of the cost). Servicing sky satelites is another story ...
I've said for a long time that I'd like to see NASA finish this idea that all Astronauts are perfect people. I think the general public would accept the risks a lot better if they showed the current Astronauts as scientists, test pilots or what ever background they come from. From everything I've read and seen, the original Astronauts were test pilots and the like, who completely understood and accepted the risks without hesitation. I'm sure that is the same today, but when NASA trots them out as Fathers, Mothers, Wives and Husbands, and something terrible does happen, the public reacts in a much different way. Thats my opinion anyway. I think the only way a Space program of any kind ever reaches any height in our lifetime is if the public accepts the risks and accepts that, its not a 5 minute break on the cable news channel, you are watching a very dangerous and yet amazing event which is taking us all a step closer to many amazing things.
You do not know what you are talking about. Space travel is inherently very dangerous. Two failures out of 129 flights is to be expected, unfortunately. See List of space shuttle missions .
Am I missing something? Why do they end the shuttle program before the next generation of space travel is ready?
IIRC shuttles were built to fly so many missions. The fleet is getting old and needs to be replaced. Retiring the fleet also will allow NASA to focus on other priorities like Orion, the next-gen spacecraft.
They knew for a while that the shuttle would be retired, seems like they would have had the next-gen spacecraft ready to go. Now, for a time, America has to rely on other countries to get us to and from the spacestation or for other necessary space trips.
some cool designs i wonder which one to pick, my dad works for nasa and will probably vote but he normally doesnt care about things like the design of the patch so i can tell him which one to vote for
Let me hit up a few replies in one post... This is a gross exaggeration that no doubt stems from ignorance. There were a lot of management failures for sure, but to call it recklessness is unfair. Possibly, but it's not trivial. They are getting VERY old. Consider that the materials that compose the bulk of the shuttle exterior are pushed to their absolute maximum physical capabilities every flight. Maintenance is not cheap, and to a certain extent just simple age is drastically increasing flight risk. These were not designed to fly indefinitely. More to the point, various companies that supply components to the shuttle are provided special incentives to make components that are otherwise antiquated. Before I left NASA, a lot of those contracts were being shut down to save money. Simply starting them up again may be impossible, and will assuredly be very expensive. Agree completely. To a certain extent, this feeling is why I chose to move on. Yes. In theory, it was only supposed to be a small (2 year or so) gap. Well, we all know how good government entities keep to schedule... Yes. But that won't happen until it's completely privatized, IMO (And no, not Burt Rutan's fake spaceships ). The simple realities of public programs is that they are incapable of surviving while also being "inherently risky". The public simply forgets the benefits and the media plays up the downsides. Complicated.
I do know what I'm talking about. It's not the number of failures that is important. It's the fact that at least one of those failures absolutely could have been prevented by simply delaying the launch of the Challenger by a day. There were people saying they didn't know if it was going to be safe because the parts had not been tested in those conditions. The decision makers decided that as long as there was no irrefutable proof that it was unsafe, they would go ahead with the launch. People died needlessly.
It was a bad design. The weirdly cold weather played a role, but to a certain extent the tang to o-ring seal on the SRBs was inherently flawed. To your point though, even the design issues were acknowledged well before the disaster.
