Only 2 more missions left on the manifest. May or may not get a third but at this time it doesn't look like it'll happen. Before we go into a lull period in our country's history of space exploration, just wanted to share a vid of one of the most complex and beautiful pieces of technology ever. Check it out here: http://www.airspacemag.com/multimedia/videos/Go-For-Launch.html
Got this website sent to me a couple of weeks ago. You can enter your zip and see a list of some of the major space objects that will pass over you. Had the opportunity last week to see Atlantis and the ISS pass over. It was really bright and my youngest son was thrilled to see it. I live well outside the city though and there is very little light to hinder seeing things at night. Not sure how well this will work in the city. http://www.spaceweather.com/flybys/
That was pretty cool thanks for posting. That hanger where they put the shuttle, fuel tank and boosters together is huge!
More and more I think the end of the shuttle program will be good for the American space program. Since Nixon slashed the budget in '72, presidents have been setting the manned space program up to fail. But Americans, on an instinctual level, think we own space. So when something happens like the Japanese moon base gets built in 2020: ...Americans will feel violated. The USAF will freak out and declare that others are "taking the high ground", and we will get back into manned spaceflight reinvigorated, with lots of new cool ideas, plenty of funding, and no existing entrenched manned space flight power structure in place to kill real innovation. The shuttle is an idea from the era of other "good ideas" like pet rocks, the AMC Gremlin and avocado colored appliances. I'm sure it seemed like a technically cool achievement at the time, but it isn't as efficient or flexible as the Saturn V. It is just the expensive expression of the pipe dreams of a bunch of Star Trek fans and other science fiction junkies and (epitomized by the big campaign to rename the test shuttle from "Constitution" to "Enterprise"). The program has been petering out for a long time. Every president has given lip service to "a bold, new plan" for space... thirty years after they leave office and don't have to budget. The only function of that perpetually delayed lie was to placate the dreamers for a little while right around election season.
Jeebus Otto, maybe you should get out of D&D more often... I don't agree with most of what you said but let's just say it is time for something new and bolder.
I got to see it up close when I went to the shuttle launch in February. Unfortunately we didn't get to go inside, which is usually part of the VIP tour. I was pretty bummed about it. It's not everyday you get to step inside the tallest one story building on Earth.
Uh, the space shuttle is/was the best LEO spaceship in the history of mankind. After 100 missions into space or so it got kind of boring and routine but that's just a testament to it's greatness. No other craft can do what it the shuttle does (payload bay to bring stuff to and from space, spacewalk accessible with airlock, land on runway) and none will for a long time. And the Saturn V was a rocket. That said, Go Orion.
Well said. Shuttle haters want to hate, but to be honest the Saturn V cost 43 billion for 13 flights or 3.3 billion per flight. The shuttle costs less than 1.7 billion per flight. Someone saying the shuttle is not as flexible is asinine when you look at the variety of missions it has performed. the Saturn V is way sexier but like you said, it is a rocket.
GSO and the moon faint. Maybe you can remind me, why exactly did the Air Force pull out of the project after it had dropped so much effort into it and went back to launching satellites from Delta IVs? It can perform a large number of missions... almost of which could be performed much more easily by disposable rockets. Why, exactly, do you need people to encase a satellite in their big space bus all the way up in orbit only to throw it out the side? I guess that you can count that as one variety of mission... one which could be performed just fine by a Delta IV for less cost. I just randomly selected about 10 different missions and read their summaries at Encyclopedia Astronautica. They are all about throwing satellites over the side, or trying out new technology for their space bus. So we needed the shuttle, to test the new robot arm, which we need for the shuttle... Soyuz is laughing at the Shuttle.
The shuttle costs to much. The shuttle was not logically designed. I personally hate the shuttle. It has basically become a huge repair van. But it is more flexible. How could we have repaired the Hubble without the shuttle? I don't know why you are hating on the shuttle. It is being cancelled, what do you want?
I believe it's about 500 million a flight, which isn't bad over a short term, but 25 years and 131+ missions is pretty ridiculous.
That is probably just the cost to refurb the shuttle to be ready to fly. when you include initial research and cost of the shuttle it goes up.
