Endeavour Launch Now Slated For Monday

For anyone camping in Florida through the series of delays in the shuttle Endeavour's launch, it may be nearly time to get out the earplugs and champagne: though there's a fair chance of yet another weather delay, for now the shuttle's final launch is slated for tomorrow. If you're thinking of driving in to catch a glimpse, good news — a Monday launch may mean a smaller crowd.

ISS without the Shuttle

[Usually Unlucky]

If you want to launch station segments by themselves like the Russians do the segments become more expensive, smaller, and less capable because each segment has to be its own spaceship complete with guidance, altitude and attitude control, and docking capability.

The shuttle allowed for the segments to be large, cheep, and uncomplicated. Plus the entire integrated truss system witch is quite literally the backbone of the station could not have happened without the shuttle. You would have to get your power from smaller solar arrays, which would greatly complicate the power system. Same problem with the radiators.

The shuttle did a great job with the ISS,

To bad the ISS hasn't done a great job for science or exploration. It has just been a large overpriced diplomacy tool, mostly used to keep the Russian aerospace industry alive after the collapse so they wouldn't wonder off and wind up in china or Iran.

Re:Godspeed, Endeavour.

[zippthorne]

Yeah, so? Mostly they're all there just lying in wait for the order to kill millions of other people. They're not really doing anything of great utility to the human race beyond being a deterrent to one group of humans murdering a specific other group of humans.