Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: eagl on July 12, 2009, 05:46:59 PM
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Shuttle launch today, around 18:14 hrs central time.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/
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denied
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/07/12/space.shuttle.endeavour/index.html
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Teh bummar. Bad WX sux.
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Anyone who has never seen one live is missing out. My wife barely missed back in March. We were visiting my grandma and I bought tickets to see the Braves and Astros play a spring training game at Disney. It just so happened to be the same night as the launch. We saw it while driving back on East 528 going up. She still got a good view, we were only about 50 miles from the Cape, I just wish I could have got her to the Cape to see it though.
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My wife said she wanted to see a shuttle launch before she lost too much vision to be able to view it, so we to see it not sure exactly when but I know it was the mission before Glen went back into space.
Somebody gave us a pass to get into the VIP viewing area so she was able to get a good view of it, today even from there she wouldn't be able to see it. It's one of the things she still talks about now to other visually impaired people, the thrill of getting to see a lift off.
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This and the next one in august are the last shuttle launches. I would recommend anyone that can get time off work to put in the request and bring the family to see at least one launch.
End of an Era :(
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Aren't we supposed to get a new shuttle? Or something similar to replace this one?
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After the Shuttle program finishes NASA will start aiming at the moon and possibly mars.
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Tac the last shuttle flight is next year.
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After the Shuttle program finishes NASA will start aiming at the moon and possibly mars.
I live in houston and my wifes dad works as a saftey manager at NASA, from I can tell you Mars is definantly not on the agenda....yet
You are correct about the Moon, however he was telling me that they are presented with the problem of what kind of space craft to develop to travel back to the moon. With the presidency not backed behind NASA as kennedy did back in the 60s the administration will have a hard time arguing for a one launch, one mission space craft. The space craft, like the saturn 5, will have to carry enough fuel to not only escape earths gravity, but also orbit, and as well as the moons orbit. And the reason why the Saturn 5 rocket was so big was to carry the fuel needed to escape earths orbit, if you look at the saturn 5 diagram only about 5% of the rocket was for the actual astronauts and equiptment to carry out the lunar landings, the rest was space to carry fuel. The new model of space crafts that are being developed to replace the shuttle would not be able to carry anywhere near enough fuel to go to the moon and back.
So the problem is gaining enough funding from the government of today, and in todays economy, to research and develop a new space craft. Not saying its another saturn 5 rocket, but the same idea on the basis of letting parts that hold the mass quanities of fuel to be destroyed. A smart person would say that the parts should just stay on the entire flight, and have it refuel, well let me put it to you this way...try to re-enter the earths atmosphere with a craft the size of the saturn 5 and expect a smooth re-entry without any break ups. It would be next to impossible, the bigger the craft the more area of something to get hit by a small rock and jepordizing the entire mission as a whole. Thats why the parts were supposed to be broken off after takeoff.
Just sit tight, the moon is definantly a possiability IF NASA can get the funding for research and development on a new space craft...for now all thats going to change is the shuttle.
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Indeed, re-entry can be quite the challenge. I always thought you pointed the nose downward to follow the descent. After a few hours in Orbiter I soon learned such a re-entry can transform you into CFC or Cosmic Fried Chicken. :D
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<<< is just east of Flip.