Space Shuttle blasts off for the last time

Last Saturday I watched the Discovery Canada program called the Last Shuttle about the last flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis. The original designer said all space shuttles were designed to have 100 missions each and most of them had done much less than those numbered missions.
 
Royale said:
Last Saturday I watched the Discovery Canada program called the Last Shuttle about the last flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis. The original designer said all space shuttles were designed to have 100 missions each and most of them had done much less than those numbered missions.
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yep. and if you look at the # of launches per year.... it's pathetic and abysmal.

all for more reason to retire space shuttles and move onto a more reliable and cheaper method - the rocket.
 
Royale said:
Last Saturday I watched the Discovery Canada program called the Last Shuttle about the last flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis. The original designer said all space shuttles were designed to have 100 missions each and most of them had done much less than those numbered missions.
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Yep. It was designed to have 100 missions WITHIN the 30 years, but things kept coming up (launch scrubbed, Challenger, Columbia, and so on). No need to push the shuttles to their end, just move on to bigger and better things. (And hopefully, more efficient too!)

Shuttle was meant for ISS only (in LEO), it was never meant to go further than that.
 
Daredevel7 said:
Yep. It was designed to have 100 missions WITHIN the 30 years, but things kept coming up (launch scrubbed, Challenger, Columbia, and so on). No need to push the shuttles to their end, just move on to bigger and better things. (And hopefully, more efficient too!)

Shuttle was meant for ISS only (in LEO), it was never meant to go further than that.
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ironic.... To go "where no man has gone before".....
 
Jiro said:
yep. and if you look at the # of launches per year.... it's pathetic and abysmal.

all for more reason to retire space shuttles and move onto a more reliable and cheaper method - the rocket.
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I agree with the NASA's decision to close down their space shuttle program then.
 
now.... we're on Russian's hands for space missions involving astronauts. That kind of makes me nervous. I hope America regains its space capability ASAP!

USA! USA! USA #1!
 
Royale said:
New rocket makes mission to Mars possible - CTV News

How about this new rocket technology that takes a rocket 39 days to Mars?
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Yep, I am hoping that type of new technologies will be developed soon! (AND FUNDED!!!)

Unfortunately, America wants to see rockets going into space NOW. No time to develop new technologies. New technologies = money and time, which is unfavorable to the eyes of Congress.
 
bleh, I would definitely funnel more resources and money into NASA/space program, alternative energy to shift us away from oil addiction, and invest/reform in this nation's education problems rather than building new weapons (ie-defense department) or putting money into the war over in the middle east.

You can't have new technologies developed unless they're funded and if someone got the idea and means to implement it. I'm hoping to see some form of faster traveling methods....instantaneous travel and interstellar travel would be nice. :)
 
sheila022 said:
bleh, I would definitely funnel more resources and money into NASA/space program, alternative energy to shift us away from oil addiction, and invest/reform in this nation's education problems rather than building new weapons (ie-defense department) or putting money into the war over in the middle east.

You can't have new technologies developed unless they're funded and if someone got the idea and means to implement it. I'm hoping to see some form of faster traveling methods....instantaneous travel and interstellar travel would be nice. :)
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With space shuttle program gone - that means more resource and money into other NASA programs :)

and how is NASA responsible for nation's education problem?
 
Wirelessly posted (sent from a smartphone. )

Sure hope USA will do better with the space program as cost effective and reliable. Hopefully go back to the moon, mars and so forth. A while ago they did launch a space telescope that is gone far away near the edge of the solar system to study the transitions of the planets passing by other stars.
 
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Well, I used to love the idea and support NASA, but the NASA stole really a lot of money from us as taxpayers. The NASA is not telling the whole truth anymore. Just be careful what you believe in the media news. I learned the hard way. Actually, NASA does not have closed captions on its movies. That is not nice - remember it's now 2011.
 
webexplorer said:
Wow! That was exciting for you to watch it. I didn't even know about it. Well, I hope that we could save our taxpayers at last. Who knows. Thanks for the update news.
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Just to clarify, I watched it on TV, not in real life... :)

And about saving the budget? Not really, since ALL of NASA only takes up less than 1% of the budget.

Source:Budget of NASA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(I know it's Wiki but it has an easy table showing what percentage of the budget is since the start of NASA. If you want to see the real source, all you have to do is look at OMB's website. Last fiscal year (FY2010), NASA was a little less than 20 billion.)

Just to give you an idea of what 20 billion is compared to our military:

From the FY2011 Budget Report:
"The 2011 Budget for DOD requests an increase of $18.2 billion, or 3.4 percent, from the 2010 enacted level of $530.8 billion."

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy11/pdf/budget.pdf (Pg. 56)

I'm not speaking bad of the military but doesn't it say something when the cost of increasing the budget for military by only 3.4% is pretty much all you need to run ALL of NASA (not to mention thousands of supported contractors)?
 
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