Author Topic: Final Flight of the Atlantis  (Read 6582 times)

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Offline Herra Tohtori

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Final Flight of the Atlantis
Today, 8th July 2011, Space Shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to lift-off for its final mission.

Weather is still a factor, the launch could be a scrub, but they're still go for launch at this time.


Tune in as history is being made:

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/ustream.html

NasaTV is now in HD!
There are three things that last forever: Abort, Retry, Fail - and the greatest of these is Fail.

  

Offline watsisname

Re: Final Flight of the Atlantis
Shuttle lifted off successfully!
In my world of sleepers, everything will be erased.
I'll be your religion, your only endless ideal.
Slowly we crawl in the dark.
Swallowed by the seductive night.

 

Offline StarSlayer

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Re: Final Flight of the Atlantis
I was a little wistful watching from the camera on the External Tank as the Orbiter disconnected and slowly rose away for the last time.
“Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world”

 

Offline Luis Dias

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Re: Final Flight of the Atlantis
It was just too damned expensive for what it did:

Quote
Space Shuttle Program was a $209 billion mistake
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MIT Technology Review - The Space Shuttle program's benefits weren't worth the cost—and now the U.S. is in jeopardy of repeating the same mistake, says a leading space policy expert.

* 135 shuttle launches since 1981
* Other, simpler designs were considered in 1971 in the run-up to President Nixon's final decision; in retrospect, taking a more evolutionary approach by developing one of them instead would probably have been a better choice.
* The program cost $209.1 billion (in 2010 dollars)
* NASA administrator James Fletcher told Congress in 1972 that the shuttle would cost $5.15 billion to develop and could be operated at a cost of $10.5 (1972 dollars) million per flight.

So actually it was (1972) $278 million per flight ($200 billion with 5.33 times inflation factors and 135 flights so 26 times more than the $10.5 million.)


http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/07/space-shuttle-program-was-209-billion.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2Fadvancednano+%28nextbigfuture%29

 

Offline StarSlayer

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Re: Final Flight of the Atlantis
That's no fair sullying her good name while Batutta is not able to defend his Lady's Honour.

“Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world”

 

Offline Polpolion

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Re: Final Flight of the Atlantis
Unfortunately, Luis, the only "alternative" right now is the Russian Soyuz. At 50 million dollars a ticket, we're really not getting a better deal with that than just having an entire damn shuttle.

 

Offline Luis Dias

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Re: Final Flight of the Atlantis
why even have a shuttle? rockets ftw

 

Offline Polpolion

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Re: Final Flight of the Atlantis
To put people in space? And the shuttle kind of used rockets. It's, you know, how it moves.

 

Offline Luis Dias

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Re: Final Flight of the Atlantis
ppl r overrtd. Myself am bot.

 

Offline Polpolion

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Re: Final Flight of the Atlantis
The ISS kind of needs a crew, unless you want to deorbit that too, which would be bad considering the ISS houses a lot of research, testing, and observational equipment, and would be a useful staging point in future missions beyond Earth orbit. The Soyuz craft works, but really only useful as a people mover. Even then three people really isn't much, and you don't have much room for a payload. The shuttle could resupply, switch the crew, and still provide a decent payload of equipment all in the same mission.

 

Offline Luis Dias

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Re: Final Flight of the Atlantis
hey thanks for the info. So you have any clues on how they'll substitute the shuttles in those tasks instead? Or are they going to use the Soyuz for all these things?

 

Offline Polpolion

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Re: Final Flight of the Atlantis
Like I just said, the Soyuz only really transfers the crew. There are other launch systems that they'll be using for resupplies and equipment handling, like the Progress (which is derived from the soyuz, and not for people), and the ATV and HTV. Additionally, private companies are contracted by NASA to use their own systems to deliver supplies through IIRC ~2015, too. They will not be using the Soyuz.

EDIT: And doing some more research, it looks like the private companies will also be doing some people moving, too. The point is, we now have about three missions doing what one shuttle mission did before.
« Last Edit: July 08, 2011, 04:00:00 pm by thesizzler »

 

Offline Luis Dias

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Re: Final Flight of the Atlantis
Perhaps it's still cheaper nevertheless.

 

Offline newman

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Re: Final Flight of the Atlantis
Reasons for retiring the shuttle were valid, but for me that doesn't make watching it retire any less sad. Especially considering there's pretty much no successor.
You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with 'til ya understand who's in ruttin' command here! - Jayne Cobb

 

Offline Luis Dias

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Re: Final Flight of the Atlantis
Well I wouldn't be so pessimistic. I actually think we are on the verge (and by "verge" I'm being generous - decades) of a space revolution. Silently prices to go upwards to the sky are getting lower and lower, and the interests of going up are also going up.

The next wave of space exploration will be by the private sector. And when it reaches the critical price points needed, it will be a boom.

 

Offline IceFire

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Re: Final Flight of the Atlantis
Reasons for retiring the shuttle were valid, but for me that doesn't make watching it retire any less sad. Especially considering there's pretty much no successor.
I feel much the same way. The Shuttles were great vehicles although perhaps overcomplicated. They did serve a great purpose of being both a transporter of people and of cargo and research at the same time.

Tragically, the biggest design flaw with them wasn't truly revealed until the Columbia disaster. I'm still very sad to see them go with no real replacement on the pad and ready to go. It does seem like companies such as Space X are making good progress and I was reading that several command module prototypes are currently being designed by a couple of companies. The manned space mission is not completely lost... But it does seem like a lot will be lost for some time.
- IceFire
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"Burn the land, boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me..."

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Final Flight of the Atlantis
Considering the problems with the Progress series for resupplying the ISS, the shuttle is a remarkably safe, simple, and cheap method of doing so.

After all, it's never tried to ram the station.
"Load sabot. Target Zaku, direct front!"

A Feddie Story

 

Offline redsniper

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Re: Final Flight of the Atlantis
"Think about nice things not unhappy things.
The future makes happy, if you make it yourself.
No war; think about happy things."   -WouterSmitssm

Hard Light Productions:
"...this conversation is pointlessly confrontational."

 

Offline Unknown Target

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Re: Final Flight of the Atlantis
I think NASA would get a lot more mileage if it talked about the last flight of the *space shuttle*. Trying to hype up each individual launch doesn't really work well for them and it's wasting a valuable opportunity to make people realize that they are losing the space program that was supposed to get them all into space.

 

Offline Sololop

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Re: Final Flight of the Atlantis
So, I'm not up-to-speed. Is this the last shuttle flight ever, or just the last for the Atlantis? If so there is a few more shuttle missions to come?

EDIT: Okay, so it's not the last flight ever as of yet. I guess they're retiring them 1 by 1. When are they expected to be completely retired?