Shuttle Makes Rare Night Landing 57
goG writes "After over 200 orbits around the Earth, space shuttle Endeavour landed safely in Florida on Sunday, ending a 14-day mission to the International Space Station. NASA pressed ahead with the Sunday night landing even though poor weather on both coasts threatened any touchdown attempt. Unusually, rain clouds were expected at both Edwards Air Force base in California and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The return marked just the 23rd time the space shuttle has landed at night, out of 130 flights."
So...about one in five? (Score:5, Insightful)
One in five isn't terribly rare...
Re:Enjoy 'em while you can, folks (Score:2, Insightful)
I appreciate the pull of private industry to space.
But big suitcases of money from the government is not real cash, and you know it. Business works truly on real dollars from real funding. What the government calls funding, I call "venture capital."
And we all know what's happened before when people make bright ideas out of nothing from a business standpoint: The 2001 "dotcom" stock crash happened for a reason.
The point I'm making is to keep a space presence in place until it's replacement shows up. I almost don't care who makes it, as long as it's affordable and reliable and not the Russians (good space people in their own right, but we shouldn't be able to go to space on their behalf).
No president has ever cut the jugular to the space program like this. Some might argue that it's time had come. But, in so many ways, the current president lacks critical vision that risks the sight of what good comes from investing in the future, rather than merely concentrating on the (equally important) social issues. If the president had vision, he'd realize that the offshoots of the space program (such as mobile computers) have helped the poor as a result become less poor.
Re:Enjoy 'em while you can, folks (Score:3, Insightful)
With all due respect, your anti-Obama rhetoric is making your political stance quite obvious and I wonder if part of your hatred of the move to private industry is clouded.
The fact of the matter is we do have backups in place right now. Commercial businesses [space.com] are already launching satellites, let alone other nations. So if we need a satellite launched, we have options.
On the idea of "And let's not worry about the big frickin' rocks that occasionally could pummel us, and the space tech needed to even consider an option to stop that.", I'm quite certain that all we would need to do is get the top competitors into a room (read: people that have skill launching things) and tell them that whoever saves the earth gets 3 Billion dollars, we'll see some results.
Personally, what I find most odd about your posts is that you seem to hold NASA up on a pedestal. Really, they've killed a bunch of astronauts and they do so at a huge, HUGE, cost to the public. Yes, they have been moderately successful over the years, but beyond building a station that they seem content to decommission asap and landing men on the moon decades ago, they really haven't done anything private enterprise isn't doing already. Well, besides sending humans up to turn screws on ailing satellites.
Why manned flight? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Enjoy" is exactly it -- manned space flight is cool. The STS pictures are amazing. It is not cost effective. I want us (humans) to have a strong committent to space exploration, real science, and for thirty years have noticed that it is a rare scientist who will speak well of the Shuttle program. It has had some great successes, such as the HST repairs (I don't know how else those would have been feasible) but the more common story I've heard is that NASA would delay launches to try to force them to go on the Shuttle, and that funding for basic research probes, with which we have seen stunning successes, was eviscerated.
So, before questioning the end of the multi-billion-dollar Shuttle program that killed two crews, be sure of what we really want next. Myself, I want to see the money spent, and spent efficiently. I'm happy enough if not a human but a robot boldly goes where no human|robot has gone before, and I suspect the robot will do a better job, cost one fifth as much, and happen twenty years sooner.
Re:Scared the piss out of me, too. (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently it came in from West to East,
I'd be surprised if it ever came in from any other direction...
Re:Enjoy 'em while you can, folks (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you proud of Nasa playing Fedex, which the Russians, Indians, Chinese, or SpaceX could also do sooner or later, or are you proud that it got from nowhere to the moon in 9 years?
It's like software or many other things. Versions 1 and 2 are highly innovative and lots happens. Then your software becomes business critical to customers and innovation stagnates, new releases only contain fixes or minor changes - goal is only to milk it for all it's worth. Obama is cutting out the stagnation and getting them back to the cutting edge.
Spirit/Opportunity (Score:1, Insightful)
they really haven't done anything private enterprise isn't doing already
Many NGOs with rovers on Mars?
Re:Night? (Score:2, Insightful)
Perhaps they are werewolf aliens that need to howl at the moon?
Re:Bad weather? (Score:3, Insightful)
The shuttle was allowed to land despite the threat of bad weather? Whats the new motto at NASA; "Safety last"?
The tiles are delicate, literally flying thru hail or rain could destroy them while they're red hot. That would be a shame if it happened on flight #1. That is no great loss if it happens on the last flight, or second to last, or whatever it is. Just put some bondo and spray paint on that dude before setting up the Smithsonian exhibit, or whatever.
Re:Bad weather? (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe they wanted to be back in time for tea.
Re:Enjoy 'em while you can, folks (Score:5, Insightful)
The Ares 1 has not had its first test flight. The 1-X had a test flight, which was just the first stage. They don't plan on a full Ares 1 test flight until 2014. Pretty much every modern rocket is based on earlier models which didn't have perfect records. Falcon 1 was designed from the ground up. It would have been a near miracle for the first couple flights to not have problems.