[Spaaaaaace!] Endeavour's/Atlantis's final flight

OptimusZed

This largely sums up my feeling on the state of our space program at the moment.

While the space shuttles were far from perfect, at least they were something. We should be upgrading, not abandoning.

The Ender

I cried a bunch when she landed today, and at her launch. Atlantis was always my favorite shuttle (she's also the bird that, if NASA weren't headed by a spineless gimp, would've been able to rescue the crew of the Columbia).


I certainly hope we get a new vehicle relatively soon. I'm sort-of edgy that someone is going to just keep blocking/rejecting NASA's proposals until the organization becomes, effectively, defunct... and then we stop going to space. I shudder at the thought that we just lived through the apex of 'space exploration' and LEO deployment.


EDIT:

While the space shuttles were far from perfect, at least they were something. We should be upgrading, not abandoning.

Well... I dunno. Upgrade them to what, exactly? Expand the program while keeping the shuttles active would be very welcome, but of course, NASA has a razor thin budget and couldn't possibly hope to do anything like that (...besides that, NASA has always said that yes, they would be eventually retiring the shuttles).

The STS system, for all of it's awesome capabilities, is pretty much restricted to LEO. We can't somehow 'upgrade' a shuttle to go exploring elsewhere - we need an entirely different kind of platform. Hopefully, that's what we'll get.

Until we do have that, though, yeah - there's plenty of reason to be anxious.

L|ama

I assume he meant upgrading capabilities in general, not upgrading the specific equipment types we have now.

OptimusZed

I was talking about our capabilities in general, not the specifics of the shuttles.

We should be making trips to the moon on a regular basis by now. At the very least.

ACSIS

That and a huge flagship for inter-system exploration, capable of some multi-year-mission profiles, as well as a swarm of solar sail probes wich can be reused again and again.

Xenogear_0001

Well, I just heard a piece on the radio about a plasma based engine for inter-system travel that would make the trip from Earth to Mars take 39 days rather than almost a year. So... that's something.

Jacoby

Just found this one:

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20110729/trojan-asteroid-discovered-1100729/

Could be a possible future long-term base?

joshofalltrades

Front page of Google News this morning has the headline that Domino's wants to be the first pizza establishment with a pie shop in space.

This is really fanciful stuff, here.

Whether the company is aware or not of the current human spaceflight problems, it's unclear, but they've done the math and calculated how much the establishment of a lunar pizzeria would cost: Y1.67 trillion ($23 billion). That's everything, from launch costs of equipment to opening its doors to paying customers. Considering Domino's net income in 2010 was only $88 million, they'll have to sell a lot more pizzas to justify opening take-out restaurants in extraterrestrial locations.

Probably more publicity than substance. Still, I'd volunteer to work there. Then, when everything goes haywire and a rogue AI takes over the station and I am the last hope for the few surviving Domino's employees, I'd put all my points into Psi powers and kick some artificial ass.