Crew For Final Scheduled Space Shuttle Mission Selected

Toren Altair writes "NASA has assigned the crew for the last scheduled space shuttle mission, targeted to launch in September 2010. The flight to the International Space Station will carry a pressurized logistics module to the station. Veteran shuttle commander and retired Air Force Col. Steven W. Lindsey will command the eight-day mission, designated STS-133. Air Force Col. Eric A. Boe will serve as the pilot; it will be his second flight as a shuttle pilot. Mission Specialists are shuttle mission veteran Air Force Col. Benjamin Alvin Drew, Jr., and long-duration spaceflight veterans Michael R. Barratt, Army Col. Timothy L. Kopra and Nicole P. Stott." Reader Al points out other NASA news that the space agency's engineers have been testing a sleek new lunar rover that will be part of their eventual return to the moon. A video of the rover in action has been posted as well.

from the make-it-memorable dept.

[Angstroem]

Hopefully not memorable like Challenger or Columbia.

Great! We got a slick lunar rover!

[Hawthorne01]

Now if we only had a rocket to get it to the moon...

Re:For the first time in almost 50 years...

[Darkness404]

While NASA doesn't have the greatest track record, I'm not sure if we can blame NASA for all these problems. NASA's budget is getting tighter and tighter every year. In general the shuttle program was a failure, it failed to really cut costs or be any more reliable than Russia's space program and even though it did do some neat and useful things such as the space telescope, it really couldn't do more than that. If we want to have people back on the moon again, we need to make some new rockets, something we should have been developing during the lifetime of the shuttle, but we haven't. After Colombia, NASA started developing rockets, but it was too little too late.

Re:Darn.

[maxume]

Another option would be no one.

Re:from the make-it-memorable dept.

[kestasjk]

Of over 100 missions 2 disasters isn't too bad, it much better than Apollo and no-one brings up the failures of Apollo whenever it's mentioned like they do with the Shuttle.. It's a shame people will remember the Shuttle for the disasters and not for the triumphs, I don't think the astronauts who died would have wanted it this way (imho).

Re:Darn.

[kestasjk]

The "space race" ended with the fall of the soviet union. Now scientific equipment built in Europe is sent up in a Japanese rocket, plucked out of space by a Russian robotic arm and docked onto a US docking hold. Far more nations have space programs, all doing different things (even India is making contributions to lunar science these days), all collaborating, and the US too is preparing a new generation of space-ships.

So yes the space race is long dead, but space exploration is booming like never before. There are less big things like landing on the moon, but make no mistake space exploration is so much more important than getting a human onto another lump of rock and getting him quickly back.

Progess

[Wowsers]

Retiring the Shuttle programe is called technological progress!?! Look at us mere mortals still flying supersonically in Concorde. Oh wait, now we all have to use slow subsonic 747's and Airbus'. THAT'S progress for you.

Re:Darn.

[tverbeek]

Um... if the entire line of presidential succession, plus Congress except Ron Paul is going to be killed in a freak Shuttle accident... I want to be the one to go in his place. I love him for his counterbalancing influence on the government we have; I would not want to live in a country where he was the government.

Re:Progess

[couchslug]

Technological progress doesn't always equal "going faster".

We don't _need_ supersonic aircraft for passenger use, the public didn't want to pay for it, so Concorde is history. We need to haul people in bulk at low cost per seat, low fuel expense, and with as little pollution as practical.

We don't _need_ to hurry putting _people_ in space, because the rest of our supporting technology can be developed less expensively (and without the loss-multiplier effect when expensive manned systems crash). We do _need_ robots and to develop remotely-manned systems for use on and off-world. Never send a human to do a machines job. Just as we use ROVs under the ocean because the environment is hostile and they are cheaper than manned systems, so we should deal with space exploration. The purpose of space exploration is to learn about the universe. The purpose of human sustainment experiments is only to learn how to sustain humans. These things are not the same.

The commercial world will eventually develop ways to send rich tourists to space, which is perfectly appropriate.
NASA should be doing pure research, not romantic tourism. So what if other countries put up more people sooner? We do the very same thing they did with our previous research and exploit it later.

Re:from the make-it-memorable dept.

[Kell Bengal]

You make an excellent point.

Arguably, the STS program has contributed more to space science than Apollo did. Not to say that we didn't learn many useful and valuable things from Apollo, but Apollo was about a destination, STS was about doing useful stuff in space. We'll reap the benefits from both for a long time to come.

I personally believe that the loss of astronauts and cosmonauts in the last 50 years has not gone in vain. They gave their lives for their country, their countrymen, their planet and for science. Because of them we have global satellite communications, GPS, advanced materials, highly developed engineering, improved cosmology and a vision of the heavens we only dreamed of.

They knew the risks and they took them gladly - they are heros, every last one of them.

Re:Progess

[jabithew]

We don't _need_ supersonic aircraft for passenger use, the public didn't want to pay for it, so Concorde is history.

That, and the fact that it was banned from flying supersonically over the US (ostensibly for environmental reasons), reducing the number of routes it could take dramatically, and the fact that it had that crash in Paris. Plus it was an Anglo-French project and the British and French flag-carriers were the only ones who could ever be persuaded to fly the damn things.

Re:Darn.

[Neon Aardvark]

So yes the space race is long dead, but space exploration is booming like never before.

Space exploration isn't pissing around in low Earth orbit. Which is what humanity has done for the past 37 years.

Re:Great! We got a slick lunar rover!

[kestasjk]

Then why are they going with Ares V?

Re:Darn.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Now that America is officially a dead nation...

The rich that destroyed the US Economy and middle class will use the money to make rockets in china.

Re:Great! We got a slick lunar rover!

[camperdave]

The other thing I don't get is the pro-NASA, anti-Direct attitude on Slashdot. On every other topic the crowd here is anti-Proprietary, Pro-Open-Source, yet when you point out that a bunch of NASA engineers and industry personnel band together in their spare time and essentially put together an "open source" launch vehicle which has been independently verified in terms of capabilities, engineering, budget, etc. you get downmodded. It's The Cathedral and the Bazaar NASA style, and Slashdot is a community of the faithful.