Second last space shuttle launch ever!

CommuterIE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbhXE-AyieM

Launched today @ 13:57 Irish time.

Endeavour was built to replace Challenger and this was its last flight.

The very last space shuttle flight will be Atlantis in a couple of months.

phasers

Why are they stopping?

CommuterIE

phasers wrote: »

Why are they stopping?

They are going to focus on spacecraft to reach out further than the ISS...

In the absence of the shuttle over the next few years they will be using Russian Soyus spacecraft to reach the ISS

That means going back to splashdowns or by parachute to the earths surface in a capsule

Donkey Oaty

I remember Jimmy McGee doing the commentary for the first space shuttle coming down to earth after a sucessful mission.

At least, I think it was the first one. It was shown live on RTE.

With a few minutes to go he said: "And if you threw a sack of potatoes out of the space shuttle now, the shuttle would land before the spuds."

Pauleta

I remember seeing endeavour flying over Ireland about 2 years ago. It was a pretty awesome sight even though it was just a light in the sky. I will never forget it.

Grumpypants

My favorite spacecraft of all time just lovely.

TeddyTedson

Imagine going up in one of them. I'd half be expecting for it to blow up with me inside.

El Guapo!

I never get tired of watching stuff like that.

cosmicfart

CommuterIE wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbhXE-AyieM

Launched today @ 13:57 Irish time.

Endeavour was built to replace Challenger and this was its last flight.

The very last space shuttle flight will be Atlantis in a couple of months.

I hope they bring back Elvis!

smk89

TeddyTedson wrote: »

Imagine going up in one of them. I'd half be expecting for it to blow up with me inside.

Why? Are you combustible?

TeddyTedson

CommuterIE wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbhXE-AyieM

Launched today @ 13:57 Irish time.

Endeavour was built to replace Challenger and this was its last flight.

The very last space shuttle flight will be Atlantis in a couple of months.

smk89 wrote: »

Why? Are you combustible?

I'd would be a bit alright.
It's amazing how quickly they get there

CommuterIE

Mark Kelly (The Commander on this mission), his wife Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords who was shot in the head not so long ago in Arizona in an assassination attempt was also at the Kennedy Space Centre to see the flight.

TeddyTedson

CommuterIE wrote: »

Mark Kelly (The Commander on this mission), his wife Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords who was shot in the head not so long ago in Arizona in an assassination attempt was also at the Kennedy Space Centre to see the flight.

Is she better already?

InTheTrees

Penultimate

Its a good word.

CommuterIE

TeddyTedson wrote: »

Is she better already?

No apparently she could only clap and say "good stuff" She's still in treatment

CommuterIE

Another interesting fact is that the solid rocket boosters plus the main booster parachute back to earth to be reused

Mrmoe

The best thing that can be said about them is that we almost take these flights for granted and that they are ordinary. They are far from ordinary, it blows your mind when you think about what is involved and where they are going.

robinph

Remember watching the first flight in school.

Bit rubbish that they are scrapping them, and they are more than a little limited in how to get stuff up there now with only the Russian craft available.

Ghandee

CommuterIE wrote: »

No apparently she could only clap and say "good stuff" She's still in treatment

That sounds like me in Coppers on a Tuesday night!

CommuterIE

Mrmoe wrote: »

The best thing that can be said about them is that we almost take these flights for granted and that they are ordinary. They are far from ordinary, it blows your mind when you think about what is involved and where they are going.

Indeed, the tragedies that happened:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4JOjcDFtBE

(this is why I look cautiously at the throttle up command

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clseDHnTx08

They risked their lives in pursuit of mankinds ambition to visit the solar system and beyond... they knew this and they will never be forgotten just like many Russians have done the same

mgmt

CommuterIE wrote: »

Indeed, the tragedies that happened:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4JOjcDFtBE

(this is why I look cautiously at the throttle up command

Apparently the astronauts were still alive after the explosion. The crew compartment survived the blast and they were killed when the compartment hit the sea.

CommuterIE

mgmt wrote: »

Apparently the astronauts were still alive after the explosion. The crew compartment survived the blast and they were killed when the compartment hit the sea.

This is quite possibly true, video evidence shows the pod leaving the shuttle, whether they were alive or not is anyones guess... obviously the parachute on the pod failed

baalthor

robinph wrote: »

Remember watching the first flight in school.

Bit rubbish that they are scrapping them, and they are more than a little limited in how to get stuff up there now with only the Russian craft available.

They were supposed to be a cheap(er) way of geting stuff into space but it didn't work out that way, according to one commentator: "if solid gold bars were floating around in low earth orbit it wouldn't be economical to send the shuttle up to bring them down"

KilOit

About time they scrapped these ancient oversized fuel tanks and put all that money into research for better spacecrafts, i want to see spacecrafts that can get to the edges of the solar system in hours not decades in my lifetime damn it :mad:

CommuterIE

KilOit wrote: »

About time they scrapped these ancient oversized fuel tanks and put all that money into research for better spacecrafts, i want to see spacecrafts that can get to the edges of the solar system in hours not decades in my lifetime damn it :mad:

Oh really, can you propose new engine designs that will defeat earths gravitational pull???

No, didn't think so :mad:

bonerm

I'll look forward to the Space Elevator thank you very much. They've been talking about it for 120 years so it should be ready any day now.

baalthor

KilOit wrote: »

i want to see spacecrafts that can get to the edges of the solar system in hours not decades in my lifetime damn it :mad:

That would be Project Orion

CommuterIE

baalthor wrote: »

That would be Project Orion

Heh, you'ld probably have Greenpeace etc crying foul, that we are destroying space.... LMFAO!

mgmt

baalthor wrote: »

That would be Project Orion

Project Orion was a study of a spacecraft intended to be directly propelled by a series of explosions of atomic bombs behind the craft (Nuclear pulse propulsion). Early versions of this vehicle were proposed to have taken off from the ground with significant associated nuclear fallout; later versions were presented for use only in space.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29

Sounds like that crap movie "The Core".

For Forks Sake

Cool photo taken from a place as the shuttle was launched : http://twitpic.com/4yg6hs

Ciano35

The retirement of the Space Shuttle will be the end of an era, really looking forward to the future.

mgmt

Ciano35 wrote: »

The retirement of the Space Shuttle will be the end of an era, really looking forward to the future.

Jeremy Clarkson said that when the SR-71 Blackbird was retired it was just that, an end of an era. Nothing replaced it. Hopefully something better will replace the shuttle. Hopefully we won't have to rely on Virgin Galactic to get into space.

Wibbs

That's my worry. SR71 gone and no non secret replacement. Apollo gone and low earth orbit is our lot. Concorde gone and cheaper 9 hours flight to the US is our lot.

Ciano35

mgmt wrote: »

Jeremy Clarkson said that when the SR-71 Blackbird was retired it was just that, an end of an era. Nothing replaced it. Hopefully something better will replace the shuttle. Hopefully we won't have to rely on Virgin Galactic to get into space.

Hopefully, although I will miss the Space Shuttle. They're beautiful tbh.

KilOit

CommuterIE wrote: »

Oh really, can you propose new engine designs that will defeat earths gravitational pull???

No, didn't think so :mad:

Well isn't that the purpose of scrapping it so they come up with new designs and hopefully breakthroughs, sorry don't work for nasa so can't help in that field but am glad they are ending this money black hole so maybe one day we could get up close and personal to a real one.

Zirconia

CommuterIE wrote: »

Another interesting fact is that the solid rocket boosters plus the main booster parachute back to earth to be reused

There's no "main booster". The main engines are part of the Orbiter, and get reused with the rest of the orbiter.

CommuterIE wrote: »

This is quite possibly true, video evidence shows the pod leaving the shuttle, whether they were alive or not is anyones guess... obviously the parachute on the pod failed

Again, there's no parachute on the "pod", This is the pressurised crew compartment and isn't supposed to separate from the orbiter at any time, even as an escape capsule!

Firefox11

Zirconia wrote: »

There's no "main booster". The main engines are part of the Orbiter, and get reused with the rest of the orbiter.



Again, there's no parachute on the "pod", This is the pressurised crew compartment and isn't supposed to separate from the orbiter at any time, even as an escape capsule!

Wasn't this one of the major flaws with the space shuttle? No method of escape from the shuttle if something went wrong at launch.

KyussBishop

Nothing significant will be replacing it anytime soon I don't think, just a massively cut down version of the Constellation program, with Orion and 'maybe' something salvaged from the Ares I rocket program (though I haven't kept that up to date).

Largely up in the air at the moment, with recent US budget changes; the future most likely lies with the Chinese, and commercial companies like SpaceX.


The most interesting development in propulsion in a long while, is this yoke:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Vasimir

Whenever people go to Mars, it will probably be using that (if it's ever politically feasible, to tie it to a nuclear reactor ).

poodles

They never even landed on the Moon...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhLzMQKyYPQ

mgmt

poodles wrote: »

They never even landed on the Moon...

I'll raise you Penn and Teller

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWZ_LCnkE7A

NSFW

Son Of A Vidic

It's depressing to think how we've actually nearly gone retrograde with space exploration vechicles. It's back to multi-stage rocket delivery systems when the Shuttle is retired. Once the Soviet Union collapsed and the space race ended, the foot came of the gas in terms of competitive ingenuity.

Manic Moran

Grumpypants wrote: »

My favorite spacecraft of all time just lovely.

I was kindof fond of this one.



My CO of the time is a rocket scientist, literally. He said that video got passed about at Lockheed in amazement of what a bunch of amateurs got up to, the footage of the launch was just a thing of beauty.



NTM

For Forks Sake

http://geeks.thedailywh.at/2011/05/16/another-space-shuttle-photo-of-the-day/