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T-43 Hours and Counting
Posted by
timothy
on Sun Jul 10, 2005 07:33 PM
from the prepare-the-tax-dollar-machine dept.
from the prepare-the-tax-dollar-machine dept.
An anonymous reader submits "As seen on NASA TV, for the first time in over two years, the countdown clock has started at 6:00 PM EDT for the Wednesday 3:51 PM EDT launch of Space Shuttle Discovery on the first of the return to flight test flights. The launch is not for certain due to weather issues associated with hurricane Dennis. Currently it is estimated for a 70% chance of launch on Wednesday, with the chances lowering later in the week. If you are confused on how T-43 hours equals almost 3 days, perhaps you should read Countdown 101."
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NASA TV (Score:3, Informative)
Re:NASA TV (Score:5, Funny)
All I remember about CUSeeMe is a lot of nudity.
Man.... NASA sure has gotten a lot more conservative since then
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Re:NASA TV (Score:3, Insightful)
Just like (American) football (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Just like (American) football (Score:3, Funny)
NASA and NFL in cahoots (Score:5, Funny)
designed for commercial tv coverage (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Hurray! (Score:5, Interesting)
And death we never can doubt.
Time's cold wind, wailing down the past,
Reminds us that all flesh is grass
And history's lamps blow out.
But the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won't drive us down to dust again.
Cycles turn while the far stars burn,
And people and planets age.
Life's crown passes to younger lands,
Time brushes dust of hope from his hands
And turns another page.
Yet the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won't drive us down to dust again.
But we who feel the weight of the wheel
When winter falls over our world
Can hope for tomorrow and raise our eyes
To a silver moon in the opened skies
And a single flag unfurled.
For the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won't drive us down to dust again.
We know well what Life can tell:
If you would not perish, then grow.
And today our fragile flesh and steel
Have laid our hands on a vaster wheel
With all of the stars to know
That the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won't drive us down to dust again.
From all who tried out of history's tide,
Salute for the team that won.
And the old Earth smiles at her children's reach,
The wave that carried us up the beach
To reach for the shining sun.
And the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won't drive us down to dust again
Re:Hurray! (Score:3, Interesting)
By now we all know the race to the Moon and Apollo were rooted in the Cold War, and politics had as much to do with that magnificent success as science and exploration. Yet, it was an adventure people will forever look back upon even after those of us who remember the day are gone.
For many, myself included, who were young and not driven by politics or Cold War rhetoric and one-upsmanship, landing on the M
Re:Hurray! (Score:5, Insightful)
You are also a fool if you assume that if Congress closes down NASA they will automatically divert the funds to feeding the homeless or giving body armor to the troops. Congress doesn't work that way. $17 billion out of $2000 billion will go back into the general account and noone would even notice.
You might also state that the shuttle does not perform any 'exploration' missions. But that would be tunnel-vision. Neither Mercury nor Gemini peformed 'exploration' missions, either. Sometimes you need to build up to a more advanced platform. If NASA wanted to go to the Moon on its first flight it would have been similar to trying to build a nuclear submarine with only wooden ship technology. Engineering platforms are important because you can break up an immensely difficult task into several smaller but achievable tasks over a longer period. Mercury and Gemini showed that a spacecraft could support EVA's, dockings, navigation, etc. Performing all of this on Apollo would have been insane!
So what is the purpose of the Space Shuttle? To build the ISS, of course. The ISS is the very simple version of the spacecraft that will eventually take humans to Mars. It is an engineering platform to determine how we have to build a spacecraft that will allow humans to survive in deep space. It will not be the last space station. The information taken from the ISS will build a more advanced space station closer to the demands needed by the Mars mission spacecraft. After several space stations we will build simple long range spacecraft (like to the L3 and back). Eventually we will perform operations where humans are no longer shielded by the magnetosphere. And then we will go to Mars. From the information from the Moon bases (of several iterations) we will build will help us determine how to build a Mars base. Then we will conduct 'exploration'.
Seems inefficient compared to robotic spacecraft? In a way. But humanity is not just about science. Sometimes science drives us to achieve technology. Sometimes its the other way around. They coexist. It is the destiny of humanity to conquer Mars. It is the destiny of the US to lead the exploration of space. Whether you like it or not, Congress will see to it that this is always true. If China, Japan, ESA, etc. ever appear to be surpassing us in space technology, there will be a boost to NASA's budget so that we don't loose national prestige. Accept it. Robotic spacecraft will supplement human spaceflight, but never replace it.
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I, Robot (Score:3, Insightful)
Heh heh, perhaps the supporter of the mighty empire should learn to spell 'lose' : ) Perhaps the US will lead space explora
Plug Time (Score:4, Interesting)
Can someone please explain (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Can someone please explain (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Can someone please explain (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Can someone please explain (Score:4, Informative)
T minus 43 hours = launch time minus 43 hours
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Re:Can someone please explain (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Can someone please explain (Score:3, Informative)
Kjella
Link to the actual TV Schedule (Score:4, Informative)
Information about tuning in to NASA TV can be found here [nasa.gov] as well.
13 isn't really a good number for NASA (Score:3, Interesting)
A self-fulfilling bad luck prophecy, something going wrong because they are worried about bad luck?
Re:13 isn't really a good number for NASA (Score:3, Funny)
Re:13 isn't really a good number for NASA (Score:5, Insightful)
If someone at NASA is seriously stupid enough to worry about launching on the 13th then NASA does indeed have a problem - hiring stupid people.
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Re:13 isn't really a good number for NASA (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:13 isn't really a good number for NASA (Score:3, Interesting)
T-19 Hours... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:T-19 Hours... (Score:3, Informative)
Umbilicals provide power and such to the shuttle while it is on the pad. The shuttle's batteries/fuel cells provide enough power for the mission, but they like to run it on Earth-based power for as long as possible before setting it on its own power.
Just think of "Demate the orbiter's midbody umbilical unit" as "Unplug laptop" before taking it off your desk. I know, not so sexy, but just imagine the laptop is a Powerbook G5 or an Alienware Media Center laptop that is liquid cooled, overclocked, an
Glimpse inside mission control (Score:5, Funny)
Assistant: Sir, the TV ratings for the launch are the highest in ten years.
Everyone: Yay!
Controller: And how's the spacecraft doing?
Assistant: I dunno. All this equipment is just used to measure TV ratings.
Good viewing place for 'ya (Score:5, Interesting)
quicktime formats? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html [nasa.gov]
Flight plan? (Score:5, Funny)
Countdown 101 Nitpick (Score:3, Informative)
I enjoy bloopers, and hopefully somebody else will too.
No wonder! (Score:5, Funny)
Still confused ... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Good for Science (Score:4, Insightful)
Why don't you just start advocating killing seniors? All that saved medicare money might buy anther probe!
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Re:Good for Science (Score:2, Insightful)
Especially if that *real* science can do things like find other planets sutable for humanity.
Face it, we need to get to the planets and other stars. This "circle the earth" shit just isn't cutting it.
Re:Good for Science (Score:4, Interesting)
"If 7 more deaths means that *real* science can get more money, then I'm all for it."
I'm a "real" scientist (chemist), and I never should want anyone to have to die because of my work.
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Re:Good for Science (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good for Science (Score:3, Funny)
*cough* (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly how much did the NASA budget for unmanned probes increase by after the columbia disaster?
Hmm.
Re:*cough* (Score:2)
That's all I'm trying to say.
Re:Good for Science (Score:4, Insightful)
Frankly, I feel the manned portion of the program could use more funding, too, but only after it has a clearer sense of direction than "let's go to the moon again." Human beings in space create a much fuller sense of purpose and accomplishment than robots, as well as some unique scientific opportunities.
Parent
Re:Good for Science (Score:2)
If the shuttle fails there are two options.
The first is that we close NASA. Divert that money into feeding homeless. Lives would be saved. Hell, even new armor for Humvees would save more lives than NASA.
The second is that we do more unmanned stuff. You know, real science. Going to other planets and stuff. Might even save the human race.
Re:Good for Science (Score:5, Interesting)
You know its a jobs program because in a recent article on the new adminstrator and his attempts to get NASA redirected towards something that isn't a dead end like the Shuttle and the ISS, there were several blurbs about how Congressman wouldn't stand for any budget cutting during the transition to CEV that meant lost jobs in any of their states/districts. The implication being NASA has to keep both its civil servant and Boeing/Lockheed contractor army at the same levels from now to eternity. That means NASA will continue to pour billions of dollars a year in to supporting this jobs program, whether there is real work or not, and it will drain funding away from actually building new launch vehicles. Also if you keep the staffing levels the same as now when CEV starts launching the launch costs are going to astronomical too.
Unfortunately since the beginning, NASA and its contractor horde were spread across the nation so congressman would give them money and political support because it resulted in jobs in their states and districts. It was OK during the Apollo era because funding was vast and they had a purpose. Over the years the funding dwindled, and the sense of purpose disappeared. It became a jobs program instead of an organization pushing back frontiers. It resulted in the ISS in particular, a 100 billion dollar hole in space which has no useful purpose other than it created high tech jobs, kept aerospace engineers in the U.S and Russia employed, and made Boeing, Lockheed etc. a lot of money for very little.
You want to fix NASA's manned space program can everyon civil servant and contractor and start over and implement Kelly Johnson's 14 rules [jamesshuggins.com](he built the SR-71 and U2 and the Skunkworks) in particular:
Rule No. 3
The number of people having any connection with the project must be restricted in an almost vicious manner. Use a small number of good people (10 percent to 25 percent compared to the so-called normal systems).
Basicly fire all the civil servants and all the contractors and start over. Put everyone in one place, and put someone in charge that can do more with less instead of less with more. Burt Rutan would be a great counterpart for Kelly Johnson though he would have to be completely freed of all the politics and bureaucracy that is strangling NASA. There are lots of people in the Russian Space Agency who would also be great for the nucleus of an all new manned space program. Of course they are already doing Kliper and it sounds like there is a chance Europe will team with them on it and kiss NASA off. The RSA is already building mockups of Kliper, while NASA is just pushing piles of paper from point A to point B on CEV.
You know the manned space program is fixed when Johnson is closed. It was insane to put a 1000 miles between the launch site and mission control just because LBJ wanted to give his home state jobs, see, a jobs program again. The bad communication between Johnson and Kennedy was a leading contributor to both shuttle disasters.
Parent
Re:Good for Science (Score:3, Funny)
I'll get started on the robots.
Re:Visit Policy (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Visit Policy (Score:3, Funny)
Oh well, at least we have good beer!
Re:T... as in WTF? (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, even without the built-in holds, what would happen if during the countdown a problem is detected and they need to repair it? Stop the clock? Keep it running?
I would much rather have NASA and their scientists/engineers do things right, rather than be pressed for time. If they have to hold for a few hours at T-43 hours, so be it.
T0 is launch time, period. They don't launch at T+5 hours because there was an issue and they kept the clock running.
It's just the way it works. I guess when one is launching a multi-billion dollar spacecraft on top of hundreds of thousands of gallons/pounds/whatever of rather volitile fuels, strapped to Big Beefy Missiles, carrying a multi-million/billion dollar payload, I'm pretty sure one doesn't want something to go wrong, and thus take every practical measure to ensure that the launch goes off without a hitch.
Parent
Re:So.. What does.. (Score:4, Funny)
However, many eminent scholars have various informed opinions as to what it stands for:
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Re:So.. What does.. (Score:5, Informative)
The system isn't perfect though, which is why you have "holds" for some things. These "holds" allow time for activities whose duration is really difficult to predict.
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Wrong... (Score:3, Informative)
Anytime you see "70% chance of rain" it means that of all the noted times that similar weather conditions occurred, 70% of those times the weather conditions resulted in rain.