What will happen to the International Space Station?
Soyuz will carry on doing resupply missions as per usual. No change there.
Live coverage of the last Shuttle launch (STS-135, Atlantis)
31–40 of 94 posts
Re: Live coverage of the last Shuttle launch (STS-135, Atlantis)
#32It's sad to see the Shuttle go without a replacement. And to jog my own memory of the day I saw the shuttle in the UK, here's a set of pictures from the day Enterprise visited Stansted Airport in the UK: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mike_ward/sets/7215760339467228... I was there as a boy standing against the wire fence with my father to see this amazing machine. Bloody marvellous!
The Shuttle program is coming to a hard stop because the program was a failure. The Shuttle is monstrously complex, killed astronauts on routine low orbit missions, and its runaway costs enveloped NASA's budget, crowding out any alternative manned platforms. There is no next-generation Shuttle or iteration of the Shuttle because simply running the current version of the Shuttle consumed NASA. After this last mission,…
While I have to agree with your overall point, I'm not ready to cede that the shuttle hurt manned space exploration more than it helped. Despite its' shortcomings, the Space Shuttle has been a point of national (and I would imagine international) pride, it's an incredible machine that has inspired the dreams of millions.
Perhaps it did hurt more than it helped, in that it made the phrase you use, "routine low orbit missions" not sound ludicrous. Perhaps it was all just a massively expensive house of cards one gentle breeze away from failure, and on the occasions it did fail, people were surprised. We've only been sending people to space for fifty years, there's still nothing "routine" about low earth orbit, and every astronaut that has died in a shuttle knew exactly the risks they were taking.
My greatest hope is that the retirement of the remaining shuttles won't be seen by Americans (and the world in general) as a failure or a "sign of the times", but will be a rallying point. It's time to move on to bigger and better things.
Re: Live coverage of the last Shuttle launch (STS-135, Atlantis)
#33http://twitter.com/#!/NASA/status/89341036589101059
"The countdown has entered a 45-minute hold at T-9 minutes."
Re: Live coverage of the last Shuttle launch (STS-135, Atlantis)
#34There's no timer on the feed, but at the moment they appear to be vacuuming. I'll take that as a sign that it's not going to launch in the next hour. Anybody have an actual time when that's supposed to happen?
It's due to be around 4:30pm GMT (edited to correct the time, I was out by an hour)
No, it's 3:30pm GMT. It's 4:30pm BST aka. London time. GMT is not whatever the time is in London.
Re: Live coverage of the last Shuttle launch (STS-135, Atlantis)
#35This is so sad. Are we betting on SpaceX to get us back into space now?
There's no betting going on at all. We're using the Russians (Soyuz) for now, and for the foreseeable future. Private firms like SpaceX or another NASA vehicle are a possibility, but neither of those options has been proven out at all, and certainly will not be ready for at least several years.
Re: Live coverage of the last Shuttle launch (STS-135, Atlantis)
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Shuttle program is coming to a hard stop because the program was a failure. The Shuttle is monstrously complex, killed astronauts on routine low orbit missions, and its runaway costs enveloped NASA's budget, crowding out any alternative manned platforms. There is no next-generation Shuttle or iteration of the Shuttle because simply running the current version of the Shuttle consumed NASA. After this last mission,…
While I have to agree with your overall point, I'm not ready to cede that the shuttle hurt manned space exploration more than it helped. Despite its' shortcomings, the Space Shuttle has been a point of national (and I would imagine international) pride, it's an incredible machine that has inspired the dreams of millions. Perhaps it did hurt more than it helped, in that it made the phrase you use, "routine low orbit m…
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Re: Live coverage of the last Shuttle launch (STS-135, Atlantis)
#37I find the Nasa stream is timing out. The UStream one is more stable for me:
Re: Live coverage of the last Shuttle launch (STS-135, Atlantis)
#38It's sad to see the Shuttle go without a replacement. And to jog my own memory of the day I saw the shuttle in the UK, here's a set of pictures from the day Enterprise visited Stansted Airport in the UK: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mike_ward/sets/7215760339467228... I was there as a boy standing against the wire fence with my father to see this amazing machine. Bloody marvellous!
[deleted]
Re: Live coverage of the last Shuttle launch (STS-135, Atlantis)
#39This is so sad. Are we betting on SpaceX to get us back into space now?
There's no betting going on at all. We're using the Russians (Soyuz) for now, and for the foreseeable future. Private firms like SpaceX or another NASA vehicle are a possibility, but neither of those options has been proven out at all, and certainly will not be ready for at least several years.
SpaceX has the Dragon.
Re: Live coverage of the last Shuttle launch (STS-135, Atlantis)
#40[deleted]