Shuttle Atlantis Docks With International Space Station For the Last Time 91
The BBC reports, with video, that the shuttle Atlantis "has docked with the International Space Station for the final time. The shuttle has brought a year's supply of food and around two tonnes of other supplies and spare parts to the ISS," where the shuttle will remain docked for at least seven days.
so... (Score:2)
russia (Score:3)
russia
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wrong. a shuttle flight is 100 times more expensive than a good old soyuz
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I have spoken.
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It's kind of interesting that the Space Shuttle was what was supposed to make going to space reliable and routine, as an advance from the previous single-use capsule technologies, which were expensive and could only be used once each.
But for a variety of reasons, it turned out that the Space Shuttle remained fairly expensive and complex to launch, while capsules became reliable and cheap enough to be a routine way of getting people and stuff to/from space.
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It's kind of interesting that the Space Shuttle was what was supposed to make going to space reliable and routine, as an advance from the previous single-use capsule technologies, which were expensive and could only be used once each.
But for a variety of reasons, it turned out that the Space Shuttle remained fairly expensive and complex to launch, while capsules became reliable and cheap enough to be a routine way of getting people and stuff to/from space.
That "variety of reasons" consisted largely, almost entirely, of budget people and politicians not listening to the engineers who were working on the project. Not that different from today, really. If you want to mess something up, go get a bunch of finance and political people involved in it. Then, when the predictable happens, say that the project was "too complex" or some other nonsense. Of course, now that we know what works and what doesn't work with this kind of concept, we could maybe, uh, go des
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It is not only the Russian Progress and the European ATV, but the Japanese HTV, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and something called Cygnus. Payloads are 7t for ATV, 6t for HTV, 6t for Dragon, 2.6t for Progress, 2.7t for Cygnus.
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There is a nice list on [a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#Docking_schedule]Wikipedia[/a]. It is not only the Russian Progress and the European ATV, but the Japanese HTV, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and something called Cygnus. Payloads are 7t for ATV, 6t for HTV, 6t for Dragon, 2.6t for Progress, 2.7t for Cygnus.
You've got to use the angle brackets (< >) instead of square brackets when linking, my friend.
Like this:
<a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#Docking_schedule>Wikipedia</a>
not
[a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#Docking_schedule]Wikipedia[/a].
See?:Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
BTW, as a side note, only the Dragon capsule will have any sort of downmass capability.
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how are more supplies going to get there?
The majority are going to be delivered by the ATV for the next 4 years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_Transfer_Vehicle [wikipedia.org]
This will actually have advantages as the station is currently at a slightly lower altitude than would be ideal in order for the shuttle to reach it. As for beyond 2015, this is not really decided as the station was originally planned for de-orbiting then anyway. Bush was very keen on seeing it down and had planned to remove the US bits then regardless and concentrate on US only ven
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Yep (Score:1)
Nothing like breakup sex...
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Yay, thanks for taking my silly joke about docking and making it sound disgusting and sexist, ass clown.
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Clowns everywhere are disappointed at your "ass clown" slur you insensitive clod (with the possible exception of that one in Tripping the Rift).
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It's not a clown slur, it's a Michael Bolton slur. So, as long as your name isn't Michael Bolton, there's nothing to worry about...
Last flight. We get it already. (Score:1)
Yes, this is the last shuttle flight.
We had the last launch.
This is the last docking.
Up next are the last undocking, last reentry, last landing, last move to final resting place. Last meal? Last piss/dump on the space shuttle?
Yes, it is regrettable, but this is the last flight. A lot of things they do will be the last time.
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Ending an old, legacy system which gobbled up the space budget isn't "regrettable".
We could have sent hundreds of remotely manned probes into space and actually done some exploration instead of wasting time in LEO.
Let OTHER countries blow their money on manned penis-waving missions instead.
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The problem is, if there aren't people in the mix, a whole lot of us just don't find a whole lot of inspiration in your idea of space utopia.
You say we should let other countries do the so called "penis waving". We can blow a whole lot less money if we don't ever launch anything again, manned or science mission. Look how much money we just saved now. Without a manned presence in space, I support a NASA budget o
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Yes, this is the last shuttle flight.
We had the last launch. This is the last docking. Up next are the last undocking, last reentry, last landing, last move to final resting place. Last meal? Last piss/dump on the space shuttle?
Yes, it is regrettable, but this is the last flight. A lot of things they do will be the last time.
I know. What we really need is a last "Last Shuttle (something)".
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This is equally retarded to someone complaining about using the terms pitcher [urbandictionary.com] or catcher [urbandictionary.com] when discussing baseball.
Maybe we need a generic thread... (Score:2)
.
Shuttle Atlantis [insert verb or verb phrase here] for the last time.
Re:Taking stock of the decades of the shuttle prog (Score:5, Insightful)
This is my humble request:
Taking stock of the 30 years of the shuttle program. I mean, I would like to know the benefits directly linked to the decades of this program.
The stock should include among other metrics; how much tax payer dollars have been sunk into the program, how else these dollars could have been used, what benefits we've obtained as a nation, any missed opportunities and other benefits if any. Specifically, I would like to see tangible things that can directly be attributed to the presence of the shuttle program.
Here's my take: There is not much we have benefited. I other words, the USA would not be that worse of if the shuttle program never existed.
You are *so* right. With the approximately $200 billion that we spent on almost 30 years of space science, we could have bought: One failed insurance company!
Oh wait, we did. Yeah, given the choice between owning a failed insurance company (AIG in case you hadn't guessed), and contributing 30 years of spaceflight to the world, I think I am going to have to go with the shuttle program on this one.
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You gotta love false dichotomies. Either you are for the shuttle or you are for welfare to billionaires. Brilliant!
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Bullshit, this isn't something that you can assign a few bean counters to and end up with a meaningful number. What about the various engineers that got fired up about creating the shuttle? Or the many children that grew up wanting to pilot the shuttle that grew up to be scientists?
This isn't something that you can readily tally up and deem to be unprofitable. There's areas like battery technology which received a huge boost because of research that NASA was doing, not to mention air and water filtration te
Re:Taking stock of the decades of the shuttle prog (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's my take: There is not much we have benefited. I other words, the USA would not be that worse of if the shuttle program never existed.
Tell that to every scientist that watched a space shuttle launch as a child and was inspired to learn. Not all rewards are obvious and tangible.
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Tell that to every scientist that watched a space shuttle launch as a child and was inspired to learn.
And? I bet we could have bought "inspiration" for a lot less than was spent on the Shuttle. The fundamental rebuttal to sentiments such as you express is opportunity cost. When intangible benefits are given an arbitrarily high price tag, then they become very expensive to obtain.
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http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-07/ten-tech-innovations-nasas-space-shuttle-trickled-down-non-astronauts [popsci.com]
But in reality, the entire benefit of the space shuttle program isn't just in "stuff". Lots of the benefits can't be boiled down into metrics, like inspiring children, boosting national pride, etc. I'm not going to claim that with these benefits the shuttles were worth their cost, but you're missing a lot of the point if you only look a
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Meh. Highly specialized requirements + unlimited funding = try to justify with a non-space use. Looking at the list I'm unimpressed. If Goodyear wanted tires that have a 10,000 mile greater tread life I think they could have done that independently.
1. Baby formula with supplement
2. Goodyear tires with additional 10,000 mile tread life
3. Tiny pump
4. Better tuna nets
6. Rescue equipment (think better jaws of life)
7. Biodegradable commercial lubricant
8. Better insulation
9. Infrared camera
10. Possible Solutions
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Taking stock of the 30 years of the shuttle program...how else these dollars could have been used...
The cost of the shuttle program over 30 years ($196 billion - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program [wikipedia.org]) could have funded 0.163 wars in Iraq and Bumfuckistan ($1,218 billion - http://costofwar.com/en/ [costofwar.com]). A much worthier cause, killing brown people, no?
There is not much we have benefited.
You must be a card carrying Republicantard, or at least, a bible humper.
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Fine, pick and choose your comparisons. How many teachers, policemen, and education programs for at risk youth could we have bought?
http://www.idlewords.com/2005/08/a_rocket_to_nowhere.htm [idlewords.com]
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Taking stock of the 30 years of the shuttle program...how else these dollars could have been used...
The cost of the shuttle program over 30 years ($196 billion - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program [wikipedia.org]) could have funded 0.163 wars in Iraq and Bumfuckistan ($1,218 billion - http://costofwar.com/en/ [costofwar.com]). A much worthier cause, killing brown people, no?
There is not much we have benefited.
You must be a card carrying Republicantard, or at least, a bible humper.
Its a shame you used that word to describe Afghanistan, it no doubt gave someone an excuse to down mod your post as flamebait even though you are actually making a very worthy point: The amount we spend on wars far exceeds the amounts we spend on space exploration, especially when you consider that the money spent on Shuttles took 30 years whereas we have spent the money on Afghanistan and Iraq far more quickly.
Also, insulting all republicans probably didn't help your point. Hopefully this post will now act
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Let me guess, you have an MBA, and your children have to justify why they should receive love and support from you.
The benefits of the space programme are numerous, and the funding is a drop in the bucket financially compared to most things the US sinks money that don't have to "justify" themselves nearly as much.
The shuttle itself is a big bus that was expensive to run, but we didn't start out making cars that released no pollution, had high reliability and could be effectively mass produced, did we?
Just o
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Another angle to look at, that maybe the population on /. is now too young to have experienced:
The Cold War.
Part of what the Shuttle Program represented was American ingenuity, pride, craftsmanship and patriotism. At the time, the Shuttle was top titty when it came to LEO and space exploration. The Soviet Mir was great too, but the Shuttle is what America had. Many here have mentioned the youth that was inspired by the Shuttle Program to become scientists and engineers. This is true (and good, really) a
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While I think the Space Shuttle was perhaps not the best way of achieving the last 30 years of US manned spaceflight... it does sound like you know the cost of everything but the value of nothing. A programme like the Shuttle should not be measured purely on tangible profit and loss, there's more to it than that.
Here's an idea... (Score:4, Interesting)
Why not just leave the shuttle there? It went up with just 4 astronauts, surely a soyuz capsule can bring them back. Let's just leave the shuttle there as a large-scale escape pod and science area. Why not do that with all the shuttles? Do we really need that many of them showing up in museums? Is the shuttle any less space-worth over the long term than the rest of the ISS?
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Because it would cost more money to keep it flight-ready in space than on the ground. And we've already seen what one uncontrolled re-entry looks like.
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That said though I could easily see decompressing it for storage then sending up a "sealing team" and/or supplies to make it a permanent part of the station at a later date.
Can't do much about the added mass though and it definitely would make a difference to station-keeping. Maybe strip anything that's not a control/flight
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It went up with just 4 astronauts, surely a soyuz capsule can bring them back.
It'd have to be organized a bit better. A Soyuz can only carry three astronauts.
Let's just leave the shuttle there as a large-scale escape pod and science area. Why not do that with all the shuttles?
First, ISS may not have the capability to supply oxygen to that much space. Second, if you've seen the Shuttle docked with ISS, it takes up a lot of room. Third, if the Shuttle is docked, that's one less docking port you have for a Soyuz Capsule.
It's a cool idea, don't get me wrong. But I don't think it's worth spending the money on the Shuttle to turn it into a space station component.
My attitude, it's time for NASA to get
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:5, Informative)
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Why not just leave the shuttle there? It went up with just 4 astronauts, surely a soyuz capsule can bring them back. Let's just leave the shuttle there as a large-scale escape pod and science area. Why not do that with all the shuttles? Do we really need that many of them showing up in museums? Is the shuttle any less space-worth over the long term than the rest of the ISS?
Because then it might fall into the wrong hands. I bet China would love to get their hands on one even now and in a few years Russia might be the only partner of the ISS consortium keeping their bits up. In that case they could always try sending the docked shuttle back to earth and then selling it to China to fund their continued program.
China would then do what they have been brilliant at lately, they would copy all the technology they could via disassembly and use it to kick start their own project. They
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Why not just leave the shuttle there?
Skylab.
Last bus leaving the station... (Score:1)
(I know, they'll have the euro thing send up a rocket or something. Or maybe they'll use the escape capsule, assuming they ever got it up and working. Last I heard it wasn't, but it's not like the news reports on that stuff much. But even so, can you imagine what'll be running throug
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"finally... some peace and quiet!"
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Waaah waaaah (Score:2)
Shuttle Atlantis Dances the Lambada for the Last Time!
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Everything is the "last time" (Score:1)
Standing out last time "News" (Score:3)
* Last time Astronauts leaving shuttle and entering ISS
* Last time reentering the shuttle
* Last time use of a space toothbrush on a shuttle
* Last time use of shuttle toilet
* Last time farted on the shuttle
* Last time hit by a pillow after farting in the shuttle
* Last time energy bar picked from astronaut A consumed by astronaut B as a revenge action due to the fart thing earlier
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No sympathy here, that POS is a known killer.
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I am absolute sure that the last not very funny last shuttle comment will not be determined by any other last shuttle activity. ;-)
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Last Landing (Score:2)
I am waiting for the news: Atlantis landed successfully for the last time. All other last time message are just useless. Just hope they get back safely in that flea trap.
Leave it up there? (Score:2)