Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Yossarian on March 07, 2011, 04:50:29 PM
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Absolutely stunning video, watch in HD+full screen+full volume etc :D:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kayCLca1YMc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kayCLca1YMc)
I still can't believe they're retiring those beauties... :cry :furious :bhead
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I can, the whole NASA system is garbage...it takes them two days of paperwork to tighten a B nut!
Strip
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beautiful as she is, she is still a 30-yr. old peice of hardware and computers that astronauts are entrusting their lives to to get them to space and back.
i've seen photos of discovery where she looks kind of rusty almost :uhoh
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The people who hate NASA can go to hell, i'm a proud supporter of the space program and i'll defend that to my death! :furious
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I can, the whole NASA system is garbage...it takes them two days of paperwork to tighten a B nut!
Strip
Tbh when they're dealing with something so insanely complex as the Shuttle, I'd say that's pretty fair.
This article shows pretty well what they need in terms of reliability: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/06/writestuff.html (http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/06/writestuff.html)
And this quote illustrates what you get when you're careful ;):
But how much work the software does is not what makes it remarkable. What makes it remarkable is how well the software works. This software never crashes. It never needs to be re-booted. This software is bug-free. It is perfect, as perfect as human beings have achieved. Consider these stats : the last three versions of the program -- each 420,000 lines long-had just one error each. The last 11 versions of this software had a total of 17 errors. Commercial programs of equivalent complexity would have 5,000 errors.
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If you look at the Space Shuttle system by system its actually pretty crude (but effective)
and relatively simple. The complexity comes from the sheer number of systems involved and
the reliability required. Save the SSME, OMS engine, RCS fuel management and few other bits
of hardware and its not any more complicated than some earth bound aircraft.
The stories I could tell....
Strip
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beautiful as she is, she is still a 30-yr. old peice of hardware and computers that astronauts are entrusting their lives to to get them to space and back.
i've seen photos of discovery where she looks kind of rusty almost :uhoh
That's inaccurate...
Tbh when they're dealing with something so insanely complex as the Shuttle, I'd say that's pretty fair.
This article shows pretty well what they need in terms of reliability: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/06/writestuff.html (http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/06/writestuff.html)
And this quote illustrates what you get when you're careful ;):
Pareto and Murphy's diminishing returns. Commercial by principle isn't going to do it govt way, but rather "build a little, test a little".
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The general purpose computers have about 23 years in service right now, but are
simple and rudimentary at best. At worst you have magnitudes times more power
inside your average smart phone than the entire Shuttle combined. Much of the
Shuttle is still as it was originally designed save a few sub systems and upgrades.
Don't get me wrong, I am sad to see her go but it was old technology in the early 90's!
Strip
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The stories I could tell....
If you're willing to tell, I'm interested! :)
The general purpose computers have about 23 years in service right now, but are
simple and rudimentary at best. At worst you have magnitudes times more power
inside your average smart phone than the entire Shuttle combined. Much of the
Shuttle is still as it was originally designed save a few sub systems and upgrades.
Don't get me wrong, I am sad to see her go but it was old technology in the early 90's!
Strip
It does seem to get the job done effectively, though.
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beautiful as she is, she is still a 30-yr. old peice of hardware and computers that astronauts are entrusting their lives to to get them to space and back.
i've seen photos of discovery where she looks kind of rusty almost :uhoh
Rust you see is probably the old tiles after re-entry
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I can, the whole NASA system is garbage...it takes them two days of paperwork to tighten a B nut!
Strip
That B nut is probably worth 10-20 thousand dollars a piece.
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I can, the whole NASA system is garbage...it takes them two days of paperwork to tighten a B nut!
Strip
I just fail to see how a program that, over the last 50 years, has consistently sent men into space, landed men on the moon, sent ships all over our solar system, landed robots on mars, and has produced some of the most interesting information on our world and other worlds can be called garbage.
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something ive allways wondered....
does the U.S announce to other world powers when we're doing a space launch? like china/russia/etc? so they dont freak out when they see us launching something up there.
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something ive allways wondered....
does the U.S announce to other world powers when we're doing a space launch? like china/russia/etc? so they dont freak out when they see us launching something up there.
I think there are basically two types of launches: first are the standard ones (using Atlas, Delta, Minotaur, etc), and the second would be purely military ones (so whatever rockets the military uses - I have no idea).
For the former: as far as I know that information is all publicly available. I think all such launches are conducted from well-established launch pads (i.e. Cape Canaveral, Vandenberg AFB, Kennedy Space Center) which can only launch one type of rocket each. I suspect that the launches which other countries might get pissed off about are the latter type, especially if they launch on paths which could be misinterpreted as being for weapons. As to whether that information is shared - I don't know, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it is.
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Rust you see is probably the old tiles after re-entry
yeah, probably.
was thinking "no way they would let that go into space with rust"
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The system that sent man to the moon is long gone, a shadow of its former self. The
two loss of aircraft events would probably have never happened in the Mercury, Gemini,
Apollo era.
One only needs to read the accident investigations to see that.
http://caib.nasa.gov/news/press_releases/pr031028.html (http://caib.nasa.gov/news/press_releases/pr031028.html)
The CAIB found evidence that more than one NASA manager actively squelched plans
that could have saved the orbiter.
The current NASA management has little in common with the prior eras and their
accomplishments. Although they have achieved many great things I strongly feel
that style that was used in the 60's and 70's could have acheived far more with
the same resources.
Strip
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NASA management also selectively squelched plans for the next rocket program so they could pretend Congress' criteria couldn't be met.
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I doubt I'll ever get to see one live.
I was in college in 1981 and all us engineers had a champagne party at 8 am in the morning to toast this engineering marvel. It's sad that this chapter is over, with no real replacement yet, either government or private sponsored.
If you like the band RUSH, they also were on hand for the first launch, and were awe-inspired and wrote a song about it. "Countdown", on their SIGNALS album (same album that has "Subdivisions" and "New World Man") http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5IA-xPGDB0
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5IA-xPGDB0)
Just look at the cars, hairstyles, etc....The shuttles have been around a long time...
<S>
Cheese
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I can, the whole NASA system is garbage...it takes them two days of paperwork to tighten a B nut!
Strip
Its like that for just about all the aviation maintenance careers
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The CAIB found evidence that more than one NASA manager actively squelched plans
that could have saved the orbiter.
I'm sorry Strip. Nothing could have saved the Columbia after SRB ignition. They could have prepped Discovery/Atlantis(?) for a very unsafe crew rescue attempt in orbit, (by all accounts they could have done an abbreviated 3 week countdown on the other shuttle on the second pad) but Columbia was doomed as a craft after the boosters ignited. That also puts another crew and orbiter at risk for an issue that no one quite understood.
The main cause for concern, to me, was so many smart people so unconcerned about anything hitting a spacecraft on ascent, especially after Discovery came back a year earlier from a hop to the station looking like someone had taken a shotgun to her belly from a foam/ice strike at about the same time off the pad that Columbia took her fatal strike. (the only thing that saved Discovery then was the location of the loss of tiles... it did not allow plasma to enter the structural supports of the orbiter...but did melt some of the orbiter's actual skin)
If you are speaking about that failure, then I agree. But, as it stood, Colombia was a dead bird the second the boosters went off, only no one knew it until a week and a half later.
Reading what happened behind the scenes during Columbia is sobering. Junior officers and Engineers going behind the backs of superiors because the superiors wouldn't listen to their concerns. Space Command getting ready to take a photo of the orbiter on orbit from spy satellites (moved the birds and tasked the mission)..... and being stopped by the flight director at the last second when she found out the request didn't follow the proper chain of submission (it simply hadn't gone through her). Radar echoes showing the missing panel, dislodged, and floating along beside Columbia every day for the length of the flight. Really sad. Watching the last 10 minutes of that mission is just unreal.
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I did not word that properly, it should have read "plans that could have saved the crew." and
I agree the orbiter was probably lost the second it launched. Although a rescue mission possibly
faced the same fate there would have been no shortage of volunteers. That community is not that
different than say a scout/sniper team trying to save the crew of a Blackhawk. They know the
risks going in but a good chance at saving seven lives would be worth the risk of losing theirs.
Strip
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http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-hd-tv (http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-hd-tv)
Discovery just started its final orbit, landing in about an hour 45 minutes.
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<S> to the crew. Glad to see they made it home safely!
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I'm sad to see this go too. I know some of you live pretty close and as a kid I went to my grandparents' house in Melbourne just about every spring and summer and saw my share of launches. What's interesting is when I talked to my great uncle in January after my grandma passed. We went over to my great ant & uncle's house who I had not seen in ages. I vaguely remembered he worked at the cape but didn't know where. He never actually told me what he did but when they were talking about it my great aunt mentioned that with the cut backs and layoffs and doom of the program he went in and offered his early retirement. Apparently he is the only one (which I find extremely odd) that knows how to do his particular job so he was told he can't retire just yet until he reaches that magical age or the program is gone. I think he either 1. just tells my great aunt that and opts to keep working instead of spending all day around her or 2. they don't want to give him the retirement money just yet for some reason. Either way it's pretty neat to see mission patches and memorabilia from every shuttle crew from the beginning to now in his den.
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Was a beautiful landing... its crowded like hell right now but I'm still a bit emotional... :cry
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Video loaded about 30 seconds too late. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr :mad:
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Alright, push it off the side of the runway and get ready for the next one. :)
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Alright, push it off the side of the runway and get ready for the next one. :)
Well Endeavour should be rolling to the pad tomorrow ;)