Today, I watched the space shuttle launch, just as I watched America's first launch of John Glenn, on T.V.
I am still awed at the magnitude of the accomplishment.

5oo million dollars and several minutes later these people are traveling 7 or 8 times the velocity of a speeding bullet, over 17,000 mph. Traveling into weightless space, with a view that is virtually, "out of this world."What an experience it must be.

The shuttles are supposed to be grounded after 2010. I wonder what will take their place.

It was wonderful to watch, wasn't it? My god, the pure science involved just astounds me. That there's people that smart to create such a thing, and other people brave enough to fly it. Incredible!

another thought--there's been a few posts here concerning people (certain muslims--maybe I misread) who don't "believe" that we actually have been to the moon--several times.
How can anyone accept such nonsense? We went there! We left a plaque there --"we came in peace for all mankind" and a flag, and golfballs.
It astounds me as well, that there are some folks I PERSONALLY know who believe the whole Apollo program was a government hoax!

I wonder what will take their place.
Things that will actually fly. NASA's been working on self propelled spacecraft for quite some time instead of having to deal with numerous boosters to get it into space. Honestly, I have very little idea as to how they could do this, I'm unaware of any internal propulsion system that could put a ship into space.


It astounds me as well, that there are some folks I PERSONALLY know who believe the whole Apollo program was a government hoax!
It was more like a miracle. What they used to get there were woefully inadequate and modern NASA would never have taken the risks with those crafts to get there.

Yes, I read somewhere that the landing mechanism failed on the Eagle and Neil Armstrong had to manually land the craft.
Nothing like good old fashioned human ingenuity!

Rendova!

It's true! WE NEVER LANDED ON THE MOON! The evidence is here (http://www.crank.net/apollo.html)! Anyone who disagrees with me is A MINDLESS SHEEP who has been brainwashed by the media... blah-blah-blah... ;)


I believe they also made a Hollywood film about faking a moon landing which has also helped to perpetuate this urban myth.

I went out with my mates yesterday and strangely this topic came up in a slightly different context. They were saying that in "New Scientist" proffesoers were working on some sort of space elevator that would propel things up a long cable.

With a quick ref on yahoo i found this

http://www.spaceelevator.com/

Not that anybody will respond or anything like that, but I'll throw in my two cents anyway.

As much as I like the space program and wish it to continue. To be honest, I'm not impressed with it at all.

The Space Shuttle is aging, becoming too dangerous and there is nothing proposed to replace it.

The PROBLEM with NASA is something called the law of diminishing returns. Simply stated, a piece of technology gets invented, work goes into this thing and it gets better. But there comes a point where you've pushed a certain technology to the absolute limit. You can invest more times, more research and more money into a given piece of technology, but you'll get less and less improvement out of it no matter what you do. At this point, to further advance technology, the old technology has to be abandonned and something new has to come to the fore.

Examples of the law of diminishing returns are sail power. Which got pushed to the limits with the invention of the Clipper ship and the Windjammer. But it wasn't research on sail technology that invented the steam ship. It was the abondonning of sails and embracing of steam that led to more effecient ships. The same can be said of many other things. The propeller driven aircraft was replaced by the jet engine. The horse and buggy was replaced by the automobile, vacuum tubes were replaced by the transistor.

Right now, we've pushed chemical rockets, and the Space Shuttle for that matter to the absolute limit. There is not much more power to be gained from them and no point in trying to improve both the chemical rocket and the Space Shuttle. Something NEW has to be invented.

I've been reading NASAs Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program and I'm aware that work is being done on anti-gravity craft. I'll link to the site and let you all have a peak at the problems of interstellar travel, new technologies and new sources of energy. It is a good read.




NASA Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program (http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/bpp/)

NASA site: Warp drive, when? (http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/research/warp/warp.html)

I have to wonder if the reuseable space truck concept is really superior to just tossing up a bunch of cheap single-use rockets.

Did I mention research done by the U.S. government on fission and fusion rockets? A physicist by the name of Stanton Friedman had worked on both. Something the size of a washing machine can produce power equal to what the Hoover dam can put out. Plus these rockets have a thrust that is one million times more powerful than any chemical rocket we've come up with. Also, nuclear fuel lasts a long long time. These things could fire for months or years on end where a chemical rocket burns itself out in a minute or two. If you want a serious craft for exploring the solar system, they'll have to get working on a fusion type rocket engine.



Friedman, his credentials and UFO research (http://www.v-j-enterprises.com/sfhome.html)

That space elevator is ingenious - I cannot think of a reason why it wouldn't work.

I agree with Lionel - I think in 2010 when the shuttle heads to the museum - we'll go back to launch stuff on rockets and the crafts will be one time use only. It's a lot cheaper, the technology is well understood.

As it stands now - the shuttle is grounded. Atlantis was due to launch in Sept but is now delayed indefinately. Foam is still flying off that main fuel tank - it was pure luck that it didn't hit the shuttle the other day. Keeping foam on a tank doesn't bode well for missions to mars. If we cannot do such a seemingly simple thing then we need to forget about mars.

If we cannot do such a seemingly simple thing then we need to forget about mars.
That is not simple. Do you have any idea what kind of forces are being put on those rockets? I don't think we have a material that wouldn't break or start to fall apart during the launch, metal would crunch and foam starts to disinigrate. It's probably easier for an engineer at NASA to calculate the trajectory to Mars in his head than to figure a way to build something that doesn't let peices go when going up.

The solution is have no foam.

The solution is have no foam.
They picked foam for a reason(it being the best possible material), and up until Columbia a bunch of paint and foam would start to fall off and they never believed there was a problem. What other material could they use, drew? Metal, as I mentioned would crunch and the shuttle doesn't take the vast majority of the forces. Take a look at how the shuttle is launched and they way it faces, it's luck that Columbia got hit by the foam, it really isn't luck that the rest of them didn't.

NASA is doing the best they can, we didn't actually have the technology to launch those rockets into space in the 60s and we don't have the technology to launch reusable aircraft now.

The foam is insulation on the fuel tank. Why do you say they could use metal? Metal is not an insulator.

They nead an insulation that is strong, light and works to keep heat out. Foam seams to be a very good idea.

Its good at insulating, and also good at destroying the shuttle & killing the crew.

The foam is insulation on the fuel tank. Why do you say they could use metal? Metal is not an insulator.
The foam is on the outside, it's a spray really. That's what the problem is at, that it's taking the brunt of the forces, forces that even metal really can't withstand, so it will start to fall apart. I was talking about structural strength and where it was, not it's necessary purpose. The way the shuttle lifts off, there's nothing else that could be used to cover the tank.

Its good at insulating, and also good at destroying the shuttle & killing the crew.
That was such a statistically small chance that NASA would have deemed it basically impossible. Unforuntately luck went against them and it happened. The way it launches, debris tend to fly around the shuttle.

Apparently the statistics were wrong

1 out of 114 or so launches is very poor odds.

http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/9007/endevor1ms8.png

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Very beautiful, Lager! :thumbs:

I lived in Cocoa Beach, about 10 miles south of Cape Canveral, for 13 years. I really miss all the shuttle and rocket launches. They were awesome every single time.

Of course we never landed on the moon. We all know what the moon is made of , and there's no sign of Green Cheese in any of the NASA records.