After Discovery's Launch, What's Left For the Shuttle?

coondoggie writes "NASA space shuttle Discovery rocketed into orbit this morning and, despite some communications problems, is slated to dock with the International Space Station in the wee hours of Wednesday, April 7. After this mission NASA has only three shuttles scheduled to launch, though speculation persists that the program may be extended. NetworkWorld has a roundup of what the last Shuttle missions consist of and what happens next."

Discovery isn't done

[crow]

The last scheduled shuttle flight is also Discovery, so today's launch doesn't signify the end of anything.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-133 [wikipedia.org]

Re:So after 28 years...

[Macrat]

...Because we all know that the 1960s were just a happy time!

I guess you don't know the Apollo program was cut short due to Vietnam.

There were many more moon shots scheduled when the program was shut down in order to send more resources to Vietnam.

Re:Reduce the debt via...

[robot256]

They started taking bids from museums a year or two ago, and closed the bidding last month [discovery.com]. Currently marked down to the bargain-basement price of $28 million each, [thetechherald.com] including shipping, no quantity discounts.

Re:So after 28 years...

[caladine]

I don't believe it has anything to do with lazy or "couldn't find the the time". People got bored with the idea, as much as that thought boggles my mind. The movie, Apollo 13, covered some of it in passing. People weren't tuning in to watch about it much until something went wrong. The hype with space was beating the USSR to putting a man on the moon, and once that was over with, people lost interest. We have people to this day that think that any space program isn't worth the money. Waning public interest in space and lots of political self interest (let's buy some more votes with social programs!) are really to blame.

Re:Gather Rust and Dust in a Museum

[Rakishi]

Sunk cost, go read up on it.

Re:Launch in July & September

[GvG]

You can buy tickets to see the launch from the NASA causeway, which is the closest publicly-accessible viewing site. See http://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/space-shuttle-launch-viewing-tickets.aspx [kennedyspacecenter.com]. For the previous couple of launches, these sold out in minutes. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/view/view_shuttle.html [nasa.gov] lists some off-site viewing locations.
Personally, I think it's totally worth it.

Re:Khrushchev is Celebrating!

[DrVxD]

On July 16, 1969 Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin A. "Buzz" Aldrin landed on the moon.

Michael Collins didn't.

Re:Khrushchev is Celebrating!

[Ellis D. Tripp]

And Armstrong and Aldrin didn't land until the 20th, either...