Shuttle Discovery ends flying career, museum next

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-space-shuttle-discovery-career.html ^ | March 9, 2011 | MARCIA DUNN

[allmost]

The one. The only. The last

[Crcl1]

I’ve got 12.3 years left and then I’m out!

[cynwoody]

The Russians got it right. They’re flying a spacecraft from the ‘60s on a rocket from the ‘50s. It’s worked out very well for them, and they haven’t lost any cosmonauts on a flight since 1971.

Not that they didn't try to advance beyond that. But the USSR's resources were stretched to the limit. As will be the USA's under Zero.

[Netz]

No need to go to extremes. No need to throw away anything that works, agreed but it is time to move on - problem is, we have no back up system, no future for manned spaceflight. What does Eugene Cernan (Apollo 17) think about all this?

[Salamander]

Just chuck it into a big pond or something.

[goofy rock probably isn’t even worth a crap for “skipping”, either]

[Salamander]

Yup.

There are probably people working there who’d like to really accomplish huge things....*without* gubmint limitations.

[bobby.223]

Okay sonny, whatever your young rear end has to say. Good God, you mouthy kids today.....

[iowamark]

Quite correct. The shuttle program was sold as being reusable and economical. It was a huge waste of money and human lives.

[Caipirabob]

Heartbreaking, I’m sorry to hear this.

[RoadTest]

“what a marvelous time to be alive.”

I hear you. Man had gotten terrific at technology.

Unfortunately, he hasn’t gotten out of kindergarten on man.

[Smokin' Joe]

Well, you see, I was hoping they’d all go on the annual run for the rock...a pond just isn’t big enough...besides, they’d have conniptions five times a day just trying to get pointed the right way.

[Salamander]

;-D

[TalonDJ]

The shuttle program was sold as being reusable and economical. It was a huge waste of money and human lives.

Exactly. At the same level it was a triumph of engineering. But it was a huge failure of macro engineering because every failure was due to fundamental design flaws. Good system architecting should have designed those flaws out from day 1. One of the big flaws at a 'requirements' level was the 'payload return' feature. This drove a lot of the design and was largely based around the misguided idea that we would want to bring satilites back to earth to fix them. A highly reliable reusable crew module paired with a nice big, SEPERATE, heavy lift rocket would have done what the shuttle did cheaper and safer.

[buccaneer81]

It was a huge waste of money and human lives.

The loss of life was tragic, but not huge. Assuming the final two flights are completed safely then two missions out of 135 will have resulted in crew loss. That's 0.0148% of the missions, using the most complex vehicles ever built by man. Space vehicles. In the most harsh and demanding environment known to man.

14 out of roughly 830 crew (keeping in mind that 350 individuals have flown on the shuttle, many multiple times) have died, meaning NASA has lost 0.0168% of its crew numbers in shuttle accidents. I would bet that the percentage of individuals killed in the first 135 flights of powered, fixed-wing aircraft over a century ago far exceeds the losses suffered on shuttles.

[Tunehead54]

To leave our ability to get to the ISS and self-directed space missions to the graces of the Russians or Chinese is treasonous. IMHO. Keep the Shuttle operating until we have a replacement system. Duh! ;-(

[Strk321]

Well, the Soyuz and R-7 booster aren’t exactly the same as they were originally. The core design is unchanged, but there have been lots of incremental upgrades over the years.

Certainly if we were still flying the Apollo, we’d be using more modern computer systems in them. Just as the shuttles had a lot of electronics upgrades (Columbia had just gotten new computers when it was lost).

As for your post, the Energia booster was pretty badass. Sucker had more power than the Saturn V. The Buran shuttle was nothing special however, and well below the technological level of the American shuttles. But as you said, the Soviet Union collapsed and there was no money to continue the project.

[Strk321]

People working into old age is going to become the norm rather than the exception in the future. Firstly because programs like Social Security are unsustainable, and secondly because improving medicine will allow better health.

Wait until they can replace damaged tissues with stem cell therapy (and it will come eventually). I believe I discussed in some other thread on FR the social implications of that.