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View Full Version : Go Baby, Go! ... Space Shuttle Atlantis



Joe Angrisani
07-08-2011, 11:44 AM
The Shuttle is off on her last mission. My hat's off to NASA yet again! Looking forward to Aries and Orion after Atlantis comes home.

Any other space nuts on The Creek?

Joe Angrisani
07-10-2011, 1:22 PM
Really? Not a one?

Did you know they select the Shuttle launch times by having guys walk over a giant clock face with divining rods??

Jerome Hanby
07-10-2011, 1:55 PM
Massive space fan, just less and less of a NASA fan. We need someone like Heinlein's Delos David Harriman to become the man who sold the moon!

John M Wilson
07-10-2011, 2:07 PM
I am also a massive space nut... raised on Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo.

I can still remember the early broadcasts, (back when it was considered news). Frank Mcgee providing the voiceover, as NASA technicians in white lab coats wrestled with the primitive, tube-based divining rods over the face of the huge mechanical analog clock... Ahh, the memories.

Greg Peterson
07-10-2011, 2:57 PM
My earliest memories of NASA is the Saturn V. The Apollo program was my introduction to space. Unfortunately, the shuttle missions were not very exciting as they never left orbit. Aside from launching satellites, maintaining satellites and supplying the space station, the missions seemed pretty routine. Granted there is nothing routine about space travel.

The Apollo program captured our imagination in a way the shuttle never did. Partly because space was a new frontier, partly because we visited another terrestrial body miles away from earth.

Still rooting for NASA to capture our imagination again. Growing up in the era of the Apollo program was a magical time where anything seemed possible.

John Coloccia
07-11-2011, 7:49 AM
I'll be honest. I'm pretty annoyed at us right at the moment. We've completely given up all of our capability in space. In 10 years, there will be no one left that remembers how to make a shuttle go, just like there's no one left that knows how to make something like Apollo go. Forgetting about entertainment value and patriotism for a moment, from a purely national defense point of view this all seems very foolish. I wish we had a plan moving forward, and I wish we had been working on that for the last 20 years so we may have something ready now.

Chuck Wintle
07-11-2011, 8:07 AM
it seems ironic that the US is now relying on russia to go to space after being the leader for so many years. I wonder if the chinese can really beat the US back to the moon and beyond?

Greg Peterson
07-11-2011, 9:45 AM
I thought we were going back to the moon? And Mars? You mean we're not doing any of those missions now? Oh yeah, I remember now.

Shouldn't be too long now and they'll be telling us the world is flat. Hello dark ages!

John Coloccia
07-11-2011, 9:50 AM
The Shuttle is off on her last mission. My hat's off to NASA yet again! Looking forward to Aries and Orion after Atlantis comes home.

Any other space nuts on The Creek?

Just FYI: Ares has also been cancelled...it died when Constellation died. Orion is still going but I don't know how they intend to launch it without Ares. Maybe they're working on something.

I sure hope those Virgin Galactic guys hurry up and get us back in the race.

Rod Sheridan
07-11-2011, 1:40 PM
Sad to see the last shuttle go, not because it's not time to retire it, but because as others have said, you guys seem to have lost your direction as a country. (I mean that in the best way, it just seems like the American people have lost their big dreams, such as the Apollo build).

Working for a space systems company, there's a certain excitement when we're performing orbital manouevers for a satelite, or watching the launch. In recent years we have launched more vehicles from Baikanour than anywhere else.

The Russians have a great track record on accuracy, reliability and cost, so a lot of the commercial launch business is with them

Here's hoping that you guys come up with another innovative large project, however I guess the economy is the current focus, as it probably should be now. That doesn't mean we can't dream of the future................Regards, Rod.

Greg Peterson
07-11-2011, 9:45 PM
Sad to see the last shuttle go, not because it's not time to retire it, but because as others have said, you guys seem to have lost your direction as a country. (I mean that in the best way, it just seems like the American people have lost their big dreams, such as the Apollo build).

Working for a space systems company, there's a certain excitement when we're performing orbital manouevers for a satelite, or watching the launch. In recent years we have launched more vehicles from Baikanour than anywhere else.

The Russians have a great track record on accuracy, reliability and cost, so a lot of the commercial launch business is with them

Here's hoping that you guys come up with another innovative large project, however I guess the economy is the current focus, as it probably should be now. That doesn't mean we can't dream of the future................Regards, Rod.

I am not optimistic that NASA will be around for future generations. That NASA even exists offends people of influence.

Brian Elfert
07-11-2011, 10:45 PM
Unfortunately, the high cost of going into space may be the end of non-military government space travel. I wouldn't be surprised to see NASA get cut severely with the cost cutting underway.

The military will continue to put satellites into space for the foreseeable future I would expect.

Joe Angrisani
07-11-2011, 10:54 PM
That is sad news about the Constellation program, John. I guess the Orion will be the heavy lift tool, and the Russians will carry the people, if Orion even rises.

If we'd just spend a little less being the world police. There'd be plenty for a space program on just what you'd save on deployment costs.

Curt Harms
07-12-2011, 7:59 AM
Sad to see the last shuttle go, not because it's not time to retire it, but because as others have said, you guys seem to have lost your direction as a country. (I mean that in the best way, it just seems like the American people have lost their big dreams, such as the Apollo build).

Working for a space systems company, there's a certain excitement when we're performing orbital manouevers for a satelite, or watching the launch. In recent years we have launched more vehicles from Baikanour than anywhere else.

The Russians have a great track record on accuracy, reliability and cost, so a lot of the commercial launch business is with them

Here's hoping that you guys come up with another innovative large project, however I guess the economy is the current focus, as it probably should be now. That doesn't mean we can't dream of the future................Regards, Rod.

It sure feels to me like the U.S. is going through a '70s redux. Lady Gaga with the outlandish costumes, a feeling of national malaise.

Greg Peterson
07-12-2011, 10:07 AM
It sure feels to me like the U.S. is going through a '70s redux. Lady Gaga with the outlandish costumes, a feeling of national malaise.

Except we never really recovered from the malaise of the 70's. Skylab was, IMO, the last imaginative thing NASA did. The shuttle, as fantastic of a machine as it is, was little more than a taxi service.

We've turned our backs on manned space exploration.

Remember how the whole world seemed to stop to witness Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon? THAT is how you become a world leader. No different than being the best player on the pitch, court or diamond. Humans instinctually respect talent and skill. They may be jealous but they certainly have to account for that talent or skill.