Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nasa.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 94 posts

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

#71

Post by TeMPOraL »

sukuriant wrote: post #69
fhars wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

you may want to change G to B. In the United States, where dollars are used, G is more likely to mean "Grand", or 1k. B would be billion. Or, when all else fails, just type it out.

He probably meant "giga".

Things like kUSD or M$ appear to have come from science - it's putting an SI prefix to a unit. Personally, when I write M$, I mean one megadollar, not 1 milion dollars.

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

#72

Post by sukuriant »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #71
sukuriant wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you may want to change G to B. In the United States, where dollars are used, G is more likely to mean "Grand", or 1k. B would be billion. Or, when all else fails, just type it out.

He probably meant "giga". Things like kUSD or M$ appear to have come from science - it's putting an SI prefix to a unit. Personally, when I write M$, I mean one megadollar, not 1 milion dollars.

That's fantastic; however, that's not how the general public writes it

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

#73

Post by rbanffy »

owenmarshall wrote: post #50
ender7 wrote: post #48

Being able to watch a live video feed of the launch is pretty amazing. Previously, TV coverage (if it existed at all) was terrible. This makes me wonder what the fate of NASA would have been if the past few generations had grown up with access to this kind of coverage. I'd like to think that NASA would have had a lot more support than they currently do.

Nearly 10% of the earth watched the lunar landing. But IMO the problem is that the "space race" was initiated & presented -- well, as a race! The goal was to beat the Russians, and once we did, interest waned. The most depressing realization comes from comparing our actions between the Apollo days & now. As a response to Sputnik, this country managed to go from an insignificant investment in space to putting a man on…

You can still present the space race as a race. Landing on the Moon is the first lap. If a goal for the second lap existed - like a permanent moonbase or something like it, it could have continued.

As marvelous as the shuttles are, they are just an expensive way to go knee deep in space. LEO is boring because we already went much further. Let's set foot on the Moon once again, and launch from there (using local materials is a good excuse) to Mars and the outer planets.

Imagine how big a telescope could be with the lower gravity and how crisp its image with no atmosphere to disturb it or absorb parts of the spectrum. Or a radio telescope shielded (by the Moon) from Earth's radio emissions. And, if something broke, someone would dress up and drive there to take a look instead of taking a year of planning and a billion-dollar mission to, maybe, fix it.

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

#74

Post by astine »

tsotha wrote: post #70
jerf wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that's arguably one of the defining features of capitalism; the engineering doesn't need public support in the US. It just needs some investors with vision and eventual profitability. The way other socioeconomic systems tend to destroy that feature in passing (on their way to some other goal) is one of the major reasons they have been such overwhelming failures in practice. The last flight of the shuttle is a h…

...the engineering doesn't need public support in the US. It just needs some investors with vision and eventual profitability. Where is that profit going to come from? Space tourism? I will be very surprised if there will be a big ongoing demand for spending a few days vomiting in an orbiting can.

"few days vomiting in an orbiting can."

You clearly underestimate the desire of the average American to make himself severely uncomfortable for the sake of a thrill. At the current level of expense, space tourism will never be more than a status symbol for the super rich, but get the cost bellow a few thousand dollars and add a few amenities to the experience and people will go hog wild for it.

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

#75

Post by rbanffy »

knarf55 wrote: post #44

It's sad to see that we are retiring the US Shuttle program. In a recent article in the Economist about how the space race is now dead, the US is now are reliant on other countries to send folks up into space or the ISS ... even though they are planning on retiring the ISS in 2020. I'm hoping that the privatization of the space programs (like SpaceX or Virgin Galatic) gets enough interest to fuel more funding and res…

SpaceX can, sort of, already deliver people and cargo to the ISS. And the Dragon looks more spacious than a Soyuz.

The shuttle, cool as it is, is a money drain. All but one of its mission profiles can be fulfilled by cheaper vehicles.

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

#76

Post by jerf »

tsotha wrote: post #70
jerf wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that's arguably one of the defining features of capitalism; the engineering doesn't need public support in the US. It just needs some investors with vision and eventual profitability. The way other socioeconomic systems tend to destroy that feature in passing (on their way to some other goal) is one of the major reasons they have been such overwhelming failures in practice. The last flight of the shuttle is a h…

...the engineering doesn't need public support in the US. It just needs some investors with vision and eventual profitability. Where is that profit going to come from? Space tourism? I will be very surprised if there will be a big ongoing demand for spending a few days vomiting in an orbiting can.

"Where is that profit going to come from?"

From providing services that are already being paid for, only for lower costs? Which generally has the effect of growing the economy in question?

You are aware that there already is a space industry, right? Private companies paying real money to put real satellites up for various reasons? It doesn't take much Microeconomics 101 to think that dropping the cost to launch by a factor of four will tend to grow the already-existing economy. Skepticism about whether a viable space economy can exist at all is too late, that ship has sailed.

Cheaper space access will enable more economic activity in existing domains, will enable new types of activities that aren't currently viable, and historically speaking, it's pretty safe to say that trying to guess in advance what will ultimately be the "killer app" is actually pretty hard, but given the existence of an already-viable economy it's more a matter of waiting and seeing than hoping.

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

#77

Post by tsotha »

jerf wrote: post #76
tsotha wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...the engineering doesn't need public support in the US. It just needs some investors with vision and eventual profitability. Where is that profit going to come from? Space tourism? I will be very surprised if there will be a big ongoing demand for spending a few days vomiting in an orbiting can.

"Where is that profit going to come from?" From providing services that are already being paid for, only for lower costs? Which generally has the effect of growing the economy in question? You are aware that there already is a space industry, right? Private companies paying real money to put real satellites up for various reasons? It doesn't take much Microeconomics 101 to think that dropping the cost to launch by a…

Oh, there's definitely money in launching satellites. But that market is already served by commercial companies. What we're talking about here is manned flights to orbit.

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

#78

Post by tsotha »

astine wrote: post #74
tsotha wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...the engineering doesn't need public support in the US. It just needs some investors with vision and eventual profitability. Where is that profit going to come from? Space tourism? I will be very surprised if there will be a big ongoing demand for spending a few days vomiting in an orbiting can.

"few days vomiting in an orbiting can." You clearly underestimate the desire of the average American to make himself severely uncomfortable for the sake of a thrill. At the current level of expense, space tourism will never be more than a status symbol for the super rich, but get the cost bellow a few thousand dollars and add a few amenities to the experience and people will go hog wild for it.

You may be right, but I suspect interest will start to fade when the early customers get back and describe the experience. Inevitably one of the launches will go bad and kill the passengers. There will be calls for the government to make it safe, and that will be the end of space tourism.

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

#79

Post by chrisjsmith »

ugh wrote: post #68
lhnn wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

At least Soyuz is more reliable than the Space Shuttle.

As far as we know. The Russians weren't always that honest about who they blew up by accident.

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

#80

Post by ak217 »

jordan0day wrote: post #60
ramidarigaz wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Elon Musk (SpaceX) has stated that he will not be satisfied until they get a fully reusable launch vehicle, and that he aims to go for a Mars mission.

Given SpaceX's record, it might happen sooner than you think.

http://www.spacex.com/updates.php http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/aug/01/elon-musk-s...

Post reply on HN