Live coverage of the last Shuttle launch (STS-135, Atlantis) • Hacker News Board

Re: Live coverage of the last Shuttle launch (STS-135, Atlantis)

#51

Post by fhars » Fri, Jul 08, 2011, 3:59 PM UTC

hugh3 wrote: post #16

It's strange to think that in fifty years of manned spaceflight, NASA has only ever built four types of spaceship: Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Shuttle. The Shuttle had a good run. It was both technically awesome and in many ways ridiculous and pointless. Anyway, time for the future now.

It was a horrible failure. It was projected for 75 launches a year at about 25M$ (thats million dollars, not a software company in Seattle) per lauch from 1977 until the late eighties when it was scheduled to be replaced by something better. Instead it was 135 launches in 30 years at 1.6G$ per lauch, and it totally crippled NASA's capabilities to develop a replacement.

Re: Live coverage of the last Shuttle launch (STS-135, Atlantis)

#52

Post by encoderer » Fri, Jul 08, 2011, 4:00 PM UTC

sung1 wrote: post #20

This is so sad. Are we betting on SpaceX to get us back into space now?

Due diligence has already been done by NASA. Contracts have already been signed. The Dragon is a go for ISS service.

I know at first this seems like a big and very risky and very uncertain change. But it's not: The private sector aerospace companies have been engineering and building our spacecraft all along^. This is evolutionary, incremental.

LEO is a solved problem now. By letting the private sector take over this tier, it frees NASA to work on advancing the science and state-of-the-art of further exploration.

^ Yes, of course NASA engineers were in the drivers seat, especially in engineering the systems, with private companies focusing on particular components. But my larger point of evolution v. revolution is the context I was getting at.

Re: Live coverage of the last Shuttle launch (STS-135, Atlantis)

#53

Post by 127001brewer » Fri, Jul 08, 2011, 4:05 PM UTC

This was an amazing, historical moment of our time. I even ran outside to grab my two-year-old son so he could watch it on TV with me. (Although he doesn't understand the significance, he keep saying "Space ship, daddy! Space ship!")

Hopefully, mankind will continue the exploration of space...

Re: Live coverage of the last Shuttle launch (STS-135, Atlantis)

#54

Post by tsotha » Fri, Jul 08, 2011, 4:06 PM UTC

jordan0day wrote: post #32

OstiaAntica wrote: post #24

Earlier 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…

We've only been sending people to space for fifty years, there's still nothing "routine" about low earth orbit...

That is the damaging legacy of STS. It's established the expectation that going to orbit can never be done at a reasonable price, that there will never be anything people can do in space worth the staggering cost of getting them there.

Getting to orbit could be routine, but we been marinating in expensive failure for so long the engineering that needs to be done to make it happen will never get public support in the US.

Re: Live coverage of the last Shuttle launch (STS-135, Atlantis)

#55

Post by lhnn » Fri, Jul 08, 2011, 4:06 PM UTC

brudgers wrote: post #17

In 1979, I watched the Enterprise+transporter fly in to Kennedy for the first time from the Indian River - that was a long time ago. Hell, it's even been 25 years since I turned on the TV to see Dan Rather using a model to explain the various external tanks and knew something bad had happened. So while it is the passing of an era, with the ISS at the sharp point of manned space flight, I'm not about to let nostalgia…

> it doesn't matter whose hardware gets us off the ground and out toward the stars.

On this, I disagree. Flying in an even older device (Soyuz) provided at a ridiculous rate from a "business partner" (calling Russia an ally is not quite accurate) is not the way we should be letting ourselves get into space.

I know the shuttle is far from perfect, but we should have had the Dragon or Orion capsule ready before shuttle retirement.

Turn off some air conditioners and get out of a few wars, and we could have easily kept going strong.

Re: Live coverage of the last Shuttle launch (STS-135, Atlantis)

#56

Post by Udo » Fri, Jul 08, 2011, 4:27 PM UTC

dmboyd wrote: post #18

jasonkester wrote: post #3

There'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?

I think im seeing the same vacuuming footage. Slightly off topic, but what's with all the people wearing baseball caps indoors. Wouldn't it obscure a large portion of your vision?

This is probably intended to minimize contamination of the equipment with hair. Apparently, they also have metal-on-metal seals on the main hatch, so the smallest pieces of dirt could potentially prevent them from working.

Re: Live coverage of the last Shuttle launch (STS-135, Atlantis)

#57

Post by Cherian_Abraham » Fri, Jul 08, 2011, 4:29 PM UTC

4 among us today, in an aging vessel slipped the surly bonds of earth, and with outstretched hands touched the face of God.

- Borrowing from Peggy Noonan, Aaron Sorkin & John Magee

Re: Live coverage of the last Shuttle launch (STS-135, Atlantis)

#58

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 08, 2011, 4:30 PM UTC

clobber wrote: post #30

What will happen to the International Space Station?

[deleted]

Re: Live coverage of the last Shuttle launch (STS-135, Atlantis)

#59

Post by Killah911 » Fri, Jul 08, 2011, 4:35 PM UTC

Just saw it from Cape Canaveral. Quite an extraordinary feeling to watch and feel the very last shuttle take off. What makes it even better is that there was only a 30% chance that the shuttle would take off due to the weather. In my mind I'd written it off, being an entrepreneur, I should've known better than to do that :-P

Re: Live coverage of the last Shuttle launch (STS-135, Atlantis)

#60

Post by jordan0day » Fri, Jul 08, 2011, 4:49 PM UTC

ramidarigaz wrote: post #49

jordan0day wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not exactly correct. Spacex hopes to do the first resupply mission to the station before the end of the year. http://www.spacex.com/launch_manifest.php

You're absolutely right. I probably should have qualified my statement as referring to manned exploration. (Sung1's comment did say "get us back into space"... I assumed the "us" referred to humans).