by Elsewhere 11 Replies latest jw friends
I normally don't wake up this early in the morning just to watch the Space Shuttle fly by, but this was a speciall occasion. This was the last time the shuttle will be visible in this area before it lands. There is also the fact that the shuttle fleet is being grounded again -- maybe forever.
As it flew over I was wondering if this was going to be the last time I would ever see a shuttle in orbit.
Cool...
It might be the last one in it's present form but I'm sure they'll revamp the whole thing. I would've gotten up too to watch that.
Oooh, Elsewhere, you are SOOOO geeky. I adore that in you. Perhaps the future is with vehicles with SpaceShipOne. It seems to me that FLOATING to earth is a much safer way to go. Though I see the flight was plagued with it's own problems:
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/SS1_touchdown_040621.html
My home in Florida was about 100 miles from the landing strip, and when the shuttle came in you always knew it because it was still supersonic, first time I thought there was a bomb or something, car alarms going off everywhere. Loudest sonic boom I ever heard.
We had an office in Melbourne, about 10 miles from the launch pad...was really awesome seeing it take off, insane power.
WLG
I hope they can fly it again, but the design is showing its age, and now that more 'eyes' in the way of high-resolution cameras are trained on it, I think we're seeing some of the problems with reusable craft design that must be addressed in the next generation of such vessels. Such problems (debris damage, hanging tile fillers, torn thermal blankets) have only been seen after the craft landed, or were discovered too late (or too little was done upon discovery), as in the tragic case of the Columbia shuttle.
Thats cool,I would have been up and getting a look at that myself.
@ jgnat
Regarding a replacement vehicle, for a long time I was hoping it would be the X-33 VentureStar. It was unique in several ways. It was a Single Stage to Orbit vehicle. This means that there would be no boosters or external fuel tanks - everything that went up would come back. It also had an amazing new rocket technology called the Arrow Spike. Basically it is a rocket engine that has been turned inside-out and is far more efficient than a traditional rocket engine because it naturally changes the thrust vector of the exhaust depending on altitude.
That project ended up being scrapped in 2001 because engineers could not solve some stability problems along with some problems having to do with storing the hydrogen fuel in carbon fiber tanks.
Neat Else , if it was flying over Wisconsin i sure would have gotten up to see it .
Here's my baby, StarShipOne with White Knight.
StarShipOne gliding to Earth.
I'm going to get up at 1am Monday just to watch the shuttle land. Exciting!
