Today - last shuttle flight

kieranb
kieranb Posts: 1,674
edited July 2011 in The bottom bracket
catch it live on NASA TV

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

in the next hour or so

16:41 Launch over!

Comments

  • Cleat Eastwood
    Cleat Eastwood Posts: 7,508
    Mightily impressive and just a little sad.

    Can't believe this is the end of manned space flight. Mans imagination in reaching for the stars has had untold benefits in our society. Not just in the tangible benefits, the hardware and concomitant technologies but more importantly in firing kids minds with wonder, awe and magic.

    It's depressingly short sighted, hope it's just a glitch in the matrix.
    The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns
    momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.
  • ravey1981
    ravey1981 Posts: 1,111
    Cleat Eastwood wrote:
    Can't believe this is the end of manned space flight.

    ?

    The Russians are still launching manned missions with the Soyuz craft
  • BigG67
    BigG67 Posts: 582
    NASA acknowledge that if they are to make a big step in space travel they need to stop the Shuttle and use the funds for something else - like manned flight to Mars.

    I love the shuttle and it is an icon of technology but there was a great quote on the radio today saying that Apollo was a mission that looked for a vehicle while the shuttle was always a vehicle looking for a mission.

    I really hope that this is the portent of a great step forward and not just a cut.
  • lvquestpaddler
    lvquestpaddler Posts: 416
    The "manned" craft have never got beyond 350 miles above the earth anyway(yes, we've never been to the moon.....) due to the Van Allen radiation that exists from 1,000 miles to 26,000 miles radius around the planet....we're imprisoned essentially.
    The astronauts in the space shuttle who got to 350 miles on one mission started seeing specks when their eyes were shut, this was the radiation emitted down from the belts that passed not only through the shuttle but their helmets and skulls.
    So a successful one off moon shot in 1969 in an aluminium rocket is about as believable as the official 9/11 report..... :lol::lol::lol:
  • bompington
    bompington Posts: 7,674
    lvquestpaddler wrote:
    The "manned" craft have never got beyond 350 miles above the earth anyway(yes, we've never been to the moon.....) due to the Van Allen radiation that exists from 1,000 miles to 26,000 miles radius around the planet....we're imprisoned essentially.
    The astronauts in the space shuttle who got to 350 miles on one mission started seeing specks when their eyes were shut, this was the radiation emitted down from the belts that passed not only through the shuttle but their helmets and skulls.
    So a successful one off moon shot in 1969 in an aluminium rocket is about as believable as the official 9/11 report..... :lol::lol::lol:
    It's things like this make me wonder if we'd just be better off switching off the internet :(
  • MichaelW
    MichaelW Posts: 2,164
    The space shuttle was the triumph of good engineering over bad design. It sucked in money like a black hole and had nowhere to go. The International Space Station was built to give the shuttle a destination, the shuttle was kept in service to have some way of getting to the ISS.
    The "dream" of human exploration of space has put back real robot-based exploration by a few decades. The real payoff from space is in the many unmanned missions, the earth observation and comms satellites, the astronomical instruments such as Hubble, the robot missions to the planets. None of these need a person.
    The Hubble refurbishment mission was the most useful that the shuttle ever did, but Hubble could have been replaced for a fraction of the shuttle cost. The current Hubble replacent is about to be canned for over-spend a few billion, not much in space terms.
  • Homer J
    Homer J Posts: 920
    bompington wrote:
    lvquestpaddler wrote:
    The "manned" craft have never got beyond 350 miles above the earth anyway(yes, we've never been to the moon.....) due to the Van Allen radiation that exists from 1,000 miles to 26,000 miles radius around the planet....we're imprisoned essentially.
    The astronauts in the space shuttle who got to 350 miles on one mission started seeing specks when their eyes were shut, this was the radiation emitted down from the belts that passed not only through the shuttle but their helmets and skulls.
    So a successful one off moon shot in 1969 in an aluminium rocket is about as believable as the official 9/11 report..... :lol::lol::lol:
    It's things like this make me wonder if we'd just be better off switching off the internet :(

    I love the internet for things like this :D
  • brucey72
    brucey72 Posts: 1,086
    I worry about this Van Allen radiation so have taken to wearing a tin foil hat at all times. David Icke tells me it also stops 'the greys' from reading my mind.
  • lvquestpaddler
    lvquestpaddler Posts: 416
    Ha ha Brucey, that's a good one, ha ha!! What wit!!!!
  • bicyclepirate
    bicyclepirate Posts: 229
    The cosmic rays appearing as flashes is totally true and it was very weird they didn't show up in the Apollo missions........
    All hail the FSM and his noodly appendage!
  • kieranb
    kieranb Posts: 1,674
    sad, during my children's childhood the last concorde and space shuttle flights have taken place with no successors yet. Still the iphone/ipad has come along!

    I was looking forward to retiring and living in an orbital city around 2050 with vacations to the Moon and Mars, and a sight seeing trip to the outer planets.

    Maybe by then I can do it in a virtual reality better than the real thing?
  • One Man And His Bike
    One Man And His Bike Posts: 661
    Homer J wrote:
    bompington wrote:
    lvquestpaddler wrote:
    The "manned" craft have never got beyond 350 miles above the earth anyway(yes, we've never been to the moon.....) due to the Van Allen radiation that exists from 1,000 miles to 26,000 miles radius around the planet....we're imprisoned essentially.
    The astronauts in the space shuttle who got to 350 miles on one mission started seeing specks when their eyes were shut, this was the radiation emitted down from the belts that passed not only through the shuttle but their helmets and skulls.
    So a successful one off moon shot in 1969 in an aluminium rocket is about as believable as the official 9/11 report..... :lol::lol::lol:
    It's things like this make me wonder if we'd just be better off switching off the internet :(

    I love the internet for things like this :D

    & I have the big Red button marked "Internet Off Switch - DO NOT TOUCH FOR ANY REASON" sat at the side of my desk...

    True story.
    http://www.onemanandhisbike.co.uk
  • Homer J
    Homer J Posts: 920
    brucey72 wrote:
    I worry about this Van Allen radiation so have taken to wearing a tin foil hat at all times. David Icke tells me it also stops 'the greys' from reading my mind.

    Am i the only one who thought it read Van Halen
  • One Man And His Bike
    One Man And His Bike Posts: 661
    You'd have to have bloody good legs to "Jump" that high...
    http://www.onemanandhisbike.co.uk
  • Homer J
    Homer J Posts: 920
    One Man And His Bike wrote:
    You'd have to have bloody good legs to "Jump" that high...

    :)
  • finchy
    finchy Posts: 6,686
    kieranb wrote:
    sad, during my children's childhood the last concorde and space shuttle flights have taken place with no successors yet. Still the iphone/ipad has come along!

    I was looking forward to retiring and living in an orbital city around 2050 with vacations to the Moon and Mars, and a sight seeing trip to the outer planets.

    Maybe by then I can do it in a virtual reality better than the real thing?

    Mars would be a crap holiday, unless you wanted to do a bit of skiing at the poles.

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