|
|
Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 8, 2011 10:31:56 GMT 12
The last ever flight of the space shuttle is scheduled for today when Atlantis takes off from Cape Canaveral in Florida, USA. Thirty years of shuttle flights will end with this mission.
|
|
|
|
Post by flyjoe180 on Jul 8, 2011 10:50:50 GMT 12
The end of an era, when you think of the time period the Shuttle has spanned and the stresses on the airframes each time they launched and re-entered the atmosphere, it was one very cost effective space programme. It has outlasted many commercial aircraft time-wise. Now NASA are returning to rockets.
|
|
|
|
Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 8, 2011 11:39:26 GMT 12
Yes, Russian rockets!
|
|
|
|
Post by baz62 on Jul 8, 2011 14:44:42 GMT 12
|
|
|
|
Post by adzze on Jul 8, 2011 15:10:32 GMT 12
I still remember the landing of the first one.
As far as delivery systems are concerned, it may be "Da" for now, soon it may be "this launch brought to you by Pepsi(R)"
|
|
|
|
Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 8, 2011 15:16:53 GMT 12
Even though it's one the most collossal wastes of money in the history of man, the space shuttle is still pretty cool technology.
|
|
|
|
Post by strikemaster on Jul 8, 2011 15:26:13 GMT 12
Its not a waste of money, but its sure not cost effective. If we had learned or achieved nothing, then it would be a waste of money.
|
|
|
|
Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 8, 2011 15:51:40 GMT 12
We've learned humans can live in space, at humungous cost. Whipty fricking do.
Think how many more useful projects those trillions of dollars could have been spent on, like warbirds!
|
|
|
|
Post by mumbles on Jul 8, 2011 15:59:37 GMT 12
We've learned humans can live in space, at humungous cost. Whipty fricking do. Think how many more useful projects those trillions of dollars could have been spent on, like warbirds! Keeping old worn-out warplanes that only a minority of people know much or care about. Whoop de do..... ;D Apologies for the paraphrase but that is a massive over generalisation there about the Shuttle legacy Dave....besides, NASA's budget is nowhere near as big as popularly thought. It is a pale shadow as an organisation of what it was in the 60's and 70's. |
|
|
|
Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Jul 8, 2011 17:29:23 GMT 12
Mercury, Gemini and Apollo were more spectacular.
I cannot remember Sputnik very clearly (I was only 3½ years old, although was vaguely aware of what was going on), but I can definitely recall the Russians and Americans launching dogs and chimpanzees into space, and I can vividly remember the first time a human took a ride into space, as well as the first space-walk.
There was a lot of paranoia back then about the Russians being the first to achieve so many space goals. I may have only been a kid, but I was definitely aware of all that paranoia.
|
|
|
|
Post by Ykato on Jul 8, 2011 17:48:48 GMT 12
|
|
|
|
Post by Bruce on Jul 8, 2011 17:55:24 GMT 12
I for one am sad that the shuttle era is closing. I remember as a kid back in 1981 getting up early (twice - the initial launch was delayed!) to watch STS-01 Columbia (Young and Crippen) Launch - and again to watch the landing. At the time I had made models of the shuttle for school projects, and mum even had to knit me a jumper with the Shuttle on it!
Over the years they've done a lot to advance science and technology, and have served well. its a pity that the spirit of exploration is now dead as far as the US space programme goes....
|
|
|
|
Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 8, 2011 18:16:30 GMT 12
Sure the shuttle was a really neat thing back in the 1980's and even the 1990's. Very much back when the USA was a super power that everyone admired, except the commies.
I remember my Dad's mate who was American living in NZ used to get lots of photos from each launch sent to him by his US aviation fan mates, and he'd post them to Dad to look at, and although they were almost all the same we all got excited to see them each time.
Do you remember that excellent drama series called The Cape about astronauts in the Shuttle programme? It starred the guy from LA Law. I liked that but it seemed to only last a short time.
I remember being woken up early one morning by Mum telling me that the Challenger had exploded, that was pretty dreadful at the time. The loss of Columbia was much less of a surprise, that was a complete balls up.
|
|
|
|
Post by strikemaster on Jul 8, 2011 19:07:24 GMT 12
Its not just about flying into space. Work on Hubble being an incredible leap in cosmology, the shuttle missions being a very big part of that just for starters. We know naff all about this planet, and learning about the origins of the universe and other planets etc will help greatly in the future. To disregard the shuttle missions as a lack of excitement would be folly. Its not about showing off a fancy space plane to the populace. Its about scientific research. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program#Shuttle_applicationsWas it cost effective? No. Would we have learned the same from sitting on our arses looking at the sky? No. Its a part of progress. |
|
|
|
Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 8, 2011 19:44:50 GMT 12
Sorry Strikemaster but I still don't see anything there that has benefitted people's day to day lives, the environment of the world at large. There might be a case for the defence satellites the shuttle launched, but it depends which side you're on I guess and who they are spying on.
I don't think anyone has stated the the shuttle missions have a lack of excitement. Though after the first few launches people did become very blaze', just as they do I suppose with any aircraft or machine that's no longer new. I remember seeing that NASA decided to film the moon landings in colour simply because they wanted to up the flagging TV ratings that they were getting with b&w, nothing else, so it's nothing new to the excitement levels dropping.
Also the Hubble telescope has produced spectacular photos but what we see is all massively enhanced by NASA photoshoppers to make it interesting the public, and all they produce is more theories, not facts. And furthermore earth-based telecopes can produce the same results. I just read today they are making a square-kilometre radio telescope to hunt aliens with, which is supposedly going to be the best yet ever devised. So people can sit on their arses on earth and do better.
|
|
|
|
Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 8, 2011 19:50:19 GMT 12
I see on that wiki page that the total cost of the programme so far they have spent US$196 Billion. That's about NZ$235 Billion. Much less than I thought but that would cover our Defence Budget for about 150 years!
Or it could buy you a lot of warbirds ;D
|
|
|
|
Post by mumbles on Jul 8, 2011 20:04:12 GMT 12
Also the Hubble telescope has produced spectacular photos but what we see is all massively enhanced by NASA photoshoppers to make it interesting the public, and all they produce is more theories, not facts. And furthermore earth-based telecopes can produce the same results. I just read today they are making a square-kilometre radio telescope to hunt aliens with, which is supposedly going to be the best yet ever devised. So people can sit on their arses on earth and do better. No they can't. Hubble in particular is capable of things that no earth based telescope could ever do, no matter how large the array, and has made immense contributions to our understanding of the universe and how it works. And that is just one thing the Shuttle enabled. It was not a perfect platform, it was hobbled by design compromises, and never paid it's way as intended, but to allege it hasn't contributed to our useful sum of knowledge is absurd. You say they only produce more theories not facts, but the scientific definition of a theory is a little more robust than the commonly accepted one. Sorry Dave but you are not coming across as genuinely well informed on this topic. |
|
|
|
Post by lumpy on Jul 8, 2011 20:14:19 GMT 12
Also the Hubble telescope has produced spectacular photos but what we see is all massively enhanced by NASA photoshoppers to make it interesting the public, and all they produce is more theories, not facts. And furthermore earth-based telecopes can produce the same results. I just read today they are making a square-kilometre radio telescope to hunt aliens with, which is supposedly going to be the best yet ever devised. So people can sit on their arses on earth and do better. Think that its worth remembering that even though technology has advanced a lot since the launch of Hubble , that the very advance of technology itself is like a chain of events . Hubble was the best there was/is ( and therefore a link in the " chain " ), thats why people strived to do better and therefore get to where technology is at today . |
|
|
|
Post by Bruce on Jul 8, 2011 20:16:02 GMT 12
I wonder if back in Captain Cook's time people mumbled about how much was spent on his expeditions, and how they could see enough of the world from where they were.....
There should always be a place in the world for exploration - mankind has been asking "what is beyond my World" for millenia, and sometimes what is found raises more questions than answers. That is no reason to stop looking out - its what defines us as Humans, and it is the inspiration that those discoveries provide (regardless of whether we directly benefit from them) that drives people towards innovation. If the Shuttle didnt inspire me towards aerospace back in the early 1980s, I dont think I would have got to the point where I designed and built my own aircraft. Thats just one testimony - how many other innovations (besides GPS, cellphone communication, computers, high temp ceramics, Fly by wire, environmetal control systems and thousands of other everyday innovations evolved directly from the space programme) have people been inspired to come up with because of the "big Picture" look that the Space programme provided?
|
|
|
|
Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Jul 8, 2011 20:24:09 GMT 12
I still reckon it was way more spectacular when the Russians and Americans used to fire men into space on top of ballistic missiles.
|
|
