Discovery safely home

Oriel

Landed at 1.12pm our time today, thankfully.

mike65

I ws listening to the live feed on radio FiveLive and it could'nt have been more low key. Can't help but feel its the end of the road though.

Mike.

Flukey

Yes, it is good it's down, but will it ever go up again? The NASA people were saying afterwards that they want to fly again before the year is out. Hopefully, but we will see.

kasintahan

I'm after this mans job!




Hi Res shot here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/STS-114_Soichi_Noguchi_EVA-1.jpg

Flukey

It has now started its journey back to Florida, piggy-backed on a jumbo jet. The next launch may now be in March next year.

Goodshape

I found all the news coverage relating to the Discovery returning safely to be pretty unbareable tbh. 40 years after landing a man on the moon and -- guess what!!11 -- we can still just about get them in and out of space. Forgive me for not thinking that's something amazing. We should be doing so much more at this stage.

Flukey

What exactly were you expecting by now Goodshape? Things have come a long way since the moon landings, but it is still a difficult and dangerous process to put people into orbit and return them. The first cars aren't much different in practical terms to what they are now, so not much advancement there either you could argue. So making the improvements in space travel that we have over the past 40 years has been a major achievement. A century ago we had only just got manned-flight. We have done very well since.

Space is pretty big, so going much further is a major step. The relatively tiny hop, on a universal scale, of going to Mars is a monumental undertaking for us. We are a long way off the sort of inter-planetary "Star Trek" type space travel yet, if that is what you are expecting.

Goodshape

Yea, you're right Flukey. It was a dig at the coverage, not at the flight.. felt like they were tuning in to see if they're all going to die this time, followed by a sigh of relief when they finally made it home. Just got sick of seeing it with the same sentimental overtones.

I'd prefer if the media had a bit more confidence in the people who's job it is to know and do these things.

Flukey

It was just human nature that there would be an interest in something like that after a disaster. It naturally brings more attention to it. It could have positive effects too, giving a higher profile to space exploration and returning a bit of confidence to it. American is particular are big into this as you could hear in the commentators initial words on the lift-off, when he spoke about it being a beginning to a possible trip to Mars. America is a media society and driven by any success they have and their need to tell everyone about it. European missions and Russian and Chinese missions don't get the same level of coverage.

Goodshape

And when things are going well you simply don't hear about it, unfortunately. Even when nothing was going particularly wrong with this flight there was constant searching for the possibility.

As you said, it's probably natural enough after the previous disaster and any coverage ( = public awareness) is a Good Thing. I just wish the majority of reports would put a different tone on the subject. A general disregard for mass media shining through maybe.

Flukey

Bad news makes news. Good news can make the news if its origins come from bad news. Most Shuttle missions are fairly run of the mill, not particularly exciting for the average punter. This one made the news for natural reasons after the tragedy. It then got a little extra attention when the damage was done on lift-off and from the subsequent space walk. If things go according to plan from here on, it won't make much news either, until we have another major new initiative. Another visit to the Moon, the completion of the International Space Station or a mission to Mars is what is going to make it big news again. Hopefully it won't be another tragedy. Space needs something new and different every so often, like the recent landings on Mars and Saturn's moon Titan. To keep it in the public eye and to keep the money floating into it, that is the kinds of things space exploration needs.