Space Shuttle Discovery final flight...

[Slartibartfast 153]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/10/discovery_retrospective/

 

Looks like she did the lions share may she find a home truly worthy of her...

[crl848 9]

A sad moment for mankind and the mighty US space programme. I thought about taking the kids out of school and going to Florida for one of the final flights, but decided against as it is probably an insane circus on the space coast, more than usual anyway. My 7 year old is a massive space buff as am I.

[MAKO69 186]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/10/discovery_retrospective/

 

Looks like she did the lions share may she find a home truly worthy of her...

 

After a good bath and refit she's going to go to the US Air & Space Museum. She did 39 missions, Her second to last she turned 25 while in orbit.

Edited March 11, 2011 by MAKO69

[MAKO69 186]

Discovery and her missions

[JediMaster 451]

Most certainly the launch was ridiculous. There were people lined up along A1A a good 25 miles south of the Cape!! Frankly, unless you've got a good lens at that distance all you see is the exhaust. You need to be within 10 to see the thing itself.

[Nesher 628]

she is a thing of beauty!

I'd love to visit the museum again and see her in all of her glory

[MAKO69 186]

Most certainly the launch was ridiculous. There were people lined up along A1A a good 25 miles south of the Cape!! Frankly, unless you've got a good lens at that distance all you see is the exhaust. You need to be within 10 to see the thing itself.

If just to say they were near the Cap makes them feel good when it went up. I was at work we watched it on the NASA network live.

Edited February 10, 2012 by MAKO69

[JediMaster 451]

I'm guessing they'll put it where Enterprise is now, so I wonder where they'll put that.

[ezlead 42]

Ace Trucking Company is getting ready to close up shop. Well Done to all!!!

NOW,let's get back to the Moon,and space exploration.

[MAKO69 186]

I'm guessing they'll put it where Enterprise is now, so I wonder where they'll put that.

 

Houston I'd guess. The Ent never went into space.

[+Gepard 11,323]

Its time to go for the Space Shuttle. Its was to expensive, to unreliable, to big and to ugly. It has killed more Astronauts than all other spacecrafts together.

[FastCargo 412]

Well, it did carry 7 at a time, so 2 accidents can do that to your numbers.

 

And it could do things that nothing else could.

 

FC

[Caesar 305]

Across a 30 year span, and over 130 missions, only 2 accidents, one of which can't even be attributed to the shuttle itself, that's a pretty damn good safety record if you ask me! I can't believe our generation's unwillingness to accept risk. Hell, before they launched John Glenn into orbit, they told him that the rocket they were launching him on wasn't the most reliable. At that time, unreliable meant "likely to explode during liftoff". Could you imagine if we told a shuttle or manned space flight crew that today?

 

"Well, guys, this rocket blows up about 60% of the time. Good luck, and God Speed."

 

Now, consider that we're strapping between 4 and 7 human beings to what is in essence a giant bomb with thousands of gallons of highly explosive fuel directed out of a few nozzles to put people into an environment they were never designed/evolved to endure, AND returning them through extreme heat and aerodynamic resistance, re-entering the Earth's atmosphere repeatedly, and then reusing the same orbiter that just endured such flight. For 30 years! To go through that and have only one orbiter fail during re-entry reflects very well on the Space Shuttle. Challenger's boosters failed, causing and explosion and then disintegration of the orbiter from excessive aerodynamic forces.

 

I think the shuttle was a fine piece of equipment, and that we could have squeezed a few more years out of her.

[MigBuster 2,884]

No technology will ever be 100% reliable and the shuttle has proven to have been very reliable in its service period for what it has to do - you may never see anything as reliable again!

 

Like Concorde retiring this just seems like one giant leap backwards for me (Despite the issues with both)

 

Where do people get the notion that going into space is an easy formality and should be risk free!!

[+Gepard 11,323]

No technology will ever be 100% reliable and the shuttle has proven to have been very reliable in its service period for what it has to do - you may never see anything as reliable again!

 

If a launch nearly never took at sceduled time, if you got up to 6 launch delays caused by failures, i would not speak of a reliable system. In contrary it was a nightmare of reliablity.

 

 

Caesar, both deadly accideds of the Space Shuttle were caused by the choosen launch system. It was a systematic, immanent design problem. The loss of the Challenger crew had could been avoided if the Space Shuttle would have had a rudimentary rescue system. All other american space craft had had a rescue system, the soviet/russian Soyuz has it too. To sacrifice such a system for benefit of higher payload was criminal in my eyes. It would be the same to built today a sportscar without airbag and seat belts.

 

Dinasour would have been a very potent NASA shuttle, but the Space Shuttle was a dead end street.

[Caesar 305]

I don't agree. The Shuttle was the first step towards reusable orbiters, something that will be a necessity if we are to go out into space, or evolve space-based travel. In that regard, the Shuttle is anything BUT a dead-end street. Primary issue is money; yes, it is easier and cheaper to make a one-time-use capsule, but it is a rudimentary means to get to space, and is highly limited crew-wise.

 

But it is questionable if the lack of an escape system would have helped with the shuttle disintegrating as it did. What is worse in my mind is that the whole Challenger Disaster could have been averted entirely if some people up top didn't rush to get it into space. After an 18-degree F night, and a 31-degree F launch, with a booster system with parts never intended to survive long in less than 40-degree F temperatures, one of the o-rings in the SRB's failed. They put the system outside of its effective limitations, launching on a cold day that the boosters o-rings weren't designed to handle. They launched out of the envelope, a ring failed, and part of the SRB acted like a torch on the fuel tank...the chain reaction started. Had they waited, or re-inspected the o-rings, scrubbed, and then launched within the performance parameters, that crew could be here today.

 

Challenger was lost because of bad decision making and pushing its system beyond its design specifications.

 

For that matter, people construct systems used without effective escape means all the time. Look at airliners. There's a hatch and some rafts, but consider, Challenger was lost during initial boost. What happens in an airliner if an engine catches fire after the plane is taking off? Try to shut it down, but lets say it detonates the wing (keep it Challenger-like). Do the passengers have ejection seats? Nope. They're all dead. The airplane will auger in, taking the crew and passengers with it. We're talking HUNDREDS of deaths, yet we all still fly on airliners. Is it criminal that airliners don't have escape systems for IFEs? And that example isn't far-fetched at all, heck, look what happened with the Concorde.

 

The escape systems used before the shuttle were not designed to work if the rocket blew up. If we do press for a next-gen shuttle sometime in the future, I hope they do incorporate an ejection system, but still am not 100% sure it'd work well if the SRBs caused the tank to blow up again, taking most of the orbiter with it. Its all part of the risk.

[FastCargo 412]

Caesar's assessment is right on the mark.

 

To date, the Russians have launched 96 folks, NASA about 277. 4 Russians have died, 14 NASA astronauts have died. In terms of overall percentage...guess what, the numbers are about the same:

 

4/96 = 4.2%

14/277 = 5.1%

 

And part of that was in a vehicle far larger, far heavier, and more capable than the Soyuz (reusable, could carry a large payload and a large crew complement, and had bring back capability which was used).

 

Did the Shuttle have its flaws...you betcha! I never liked the idea of a booster that can't be shut off on a man rated space vehicle. The idea of using wings to get down but not to get up means they are just dead weight on ascent. Not fully reusable because of politics (can't spend the money on the front end which results in compromises). But, there was nothing out there like it...the Russians tried it (which if you didn't notice, looked a LOT like our shuttle) but ultimately gave up on it.

 

Taking a man, strapping him to an explosive laden vehicle, accelerating him to Mach 25 into an environment with no oxygen and high radiation, getting rid of all that energy bringing him back down...what part of ANY of that sounds safe? Astronauts knew the risks...and went anyway. I know the risks of airline flying, of military flying, where on certain days you can do everything right...and still end up a statistic. That's part of the job.

 

Could there be better options? Sure...I still like the two part system...a small manned spacecraft (heck, a manned version of the X-37B would be nice) for getting your crew up, and a Big Dumb Booster (BDB) for bringing up the freight. For the manned system, smaller means lighter means simpler means cheaper.

 

Will there be follow ons to the Shuttle that will do it better? I hope so...but the Shuttle did it first. Someone has to be first.

 

FC

[ezlead 42]

100% Right On FC.

Nothing in life is without risk.

If you compare the Shuttle to all other aircraft,its safety record is unbelievable.

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Gep is right, but maybe the shuttle fit the times given NASA's retreat to low orbit in the 1970s.

 

FC you nailed it with the need for a big dumb booster working with a small passenger transport. I'd say if NASA ever went beyond low orbit, your combination would be a requirement. Shuttle itself would not do it -- Gep's "dead end street."

[JediMaster 451]

That's what Constellation was. Ares I/Orion was a small "Apollo on steroids" capsule that could only carry 6 people to and from orbit. Ares V was the heavy lifter that would put cargo and eventually things like a lunar lander and transit stage in orbit.

Of course, that was canceled because our brilliant administration thinks NASA can let commercial companies who to date have NEVER sent one person up there do it. So NASA has let too many people die but some company interested in only the bottom line will do it better?

[MAKO69 186]

NASA-

28 June 2011 STS-135 39A KSC 12 days (planned) International Space Station resupply using the Raffaello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module and the Lightweight Multi-Purpose Carrier (LMC). The failed ammonia pump module that was replaced in August 2010 is expected to be returned inside Atlantis' payload bay. This is the final mission of Space Shuttle Atlantis unless it has to rescue Endeavour when it goes up which is the last scheduled mission. Ever since the Columbia went down there is always a Rescue shuttle and crew at the ready just in case.

Edited March 15, 2011 by MAKO69

[+Gepard 11,323]

FC, your statistic about the loss ratio is impressive, but during my studies we had a proverb: Lie, bad Lie, Statistics. Or with the words of old Winni Churchill: I trust only ... and so on.

My statement about the Space Shuttle is not made to harm the proud of America. Of course, the Space Shuttle was a high tech device at his time and it is impressive up today. But it had a lot of design problems. Cesar said, a rescue system is dont designed for work while the rocket boost. I doubt. The SPS system of the Soyuz rescued two crews in the critical start phase. And i think the Apollo rescue system would have worked the same way.

 

For the NASA it would have been better to follow the Dinasour project. It was cheaper and would have been faster to develope. With the Dinasour and the Skylab, the NASA would have had an unbeatable combination which was much more advanced then the Soyuz Salut concept of the soviets. The development of the Shuttle was to long, so that Skylab falls from Sky before the Shuttle was able to make his maiden flight. But without Space Station the Shuttle was worth only the half. With the ISS it became different, then the Shuttle had a destination and a good task, but then it was outdated and old. Old technic has its problems, thats natural.

But all tasks the Space Shuttle had fullfilled, the NASA could have done better, faster and cheaper without it.

[Toryu 156]

The Shuttle programme did have an important military aspect.

After the Challenger-catastrophe, which was a failure of management (as was the Columbia-desaster), the military pulled out.

Pre-Challanger, the militray had about half the missions of all Shuttle-flights (24 in total until then).

 

With the military pulled-out, the programme went out of the initial course.

Mir and now ISS were important steps and parallel-programmes the Shuttle was used to support.

 

The Shuttle enabled huge payloads to be hauled into space, fix them (Hubble Space telescope) or bring them back altogether (as FC already pointed out).

 

 

The Shuttle has to be one of the most impressive machines ever built (two professors of mine have been involved in the Shuttle-programme).

 

 

Getting seven Astronauts into space, supporting them for two weeks, throwing out a satellite or two during the process and bringing the entire system back altogether is an unparalleled feature.

 

NOTHING could possibly have been as important in the recent history of manned spaceflight as the Shuttle-programme.