The last launch / landing

Space Shuttle Atlantis, go for launch, T-8 minutes: http://www.livestream.com/spaceflightnow?utm_source=lsplayer&utm_medium=embed&utm_campaign=footerlinks

Lift-off! There she goes, one last time!

The end of an era, and hopefully a new one will start soon!

@Sven Groot:Was looking doubtful, according to reports. I do wonder when the new era will be?

Probably totally unrelated but the other day I was driving through an industrial estate in Bristol and spotted Concorde sitting forlornly in a field.  Apparently it is being cleaned up ready to be put on show somewhere?  (There is also a rumour that one might fly again for the 2012 games).

BTW If anyone is local you can see it by driving to Cribbs Causeway around the back of Marks & Spencers ...

Luckily the race for space will not stand still. SpaceX and space faring nations will continue until NASA reports back for duty with the next generation shuttle.

7 minutes ago,blowdart wrote

*snip*

They have one at the seattle museum of flight. It's really really narrow.

Yep, I visited that during my trip to Seattle in 2009. I remember it's also very low, I could barely stand up in it.

That's a pretty awesome museum anyway: they also have a prototype Apollo command module, a replica of the Wright Flyer (a functioning replica; it has been flown), and a Blackbird SR-71, among many other cool aircraft and related stuff.

They also had a lunar lander game that was insanely easy even at the hardest setting. If that was true to how the real LM flew, then a cat could've flown it to the surface of the moon and landed safely.

I followed the live broadcast on NASA TV .... they stopped at -31 seconds because of some glitch, then resumed countdown a few seconds later.

Liftoff was perfect ...

I visited Kennedy Space Center in 2007 when I was working on a little project in Florida ... it is a totally awesome place, and my son, having heard so many stories can't wait to go ...

@dahat:Not yet, hopefully there will be within a decade.

@exoteric: To what end? 

Space exploration is awesome, but we aren't doing anything novel at this ponit, we're simply repeating the same thing over and over again.  We know how to reach orbit.  We know how to send out probes. 

Until someone comes up with a unique idea that can take us somewhere new, what would be the national purpose of trying to put more folks into space? 

If we want to set up a lunar base, then concentrate on that, and solve ALL of the forseeable issues, and do it. 

Just shoving more meat into orbit isn't helping.

I think NASA as we knew them is finished. We'll see private companies pop up to do what NASA used to do.

Also, can anyone explain why we use rockets to lift off from the ground instead of towing the spaceship to the upper atmosphere on a jet? Much easier to break gravity's pull from 60,000 feet up.

1 hour ago,spivonious wrote

 

Also, can anyone explain why we use rockets to lift off from the ground instead of towing the spaceship to the upper atmosphere on a jet? Much easier to break gravity's pull from 60,000 feet up.

Like Pegasus? I suspect there's an upper limit on payload involved.

Also, can anyone explain why we use rockets to lift off from the ground instead of towing the spaceship to the upper atmosphere on a jet? Much easier to break gravity's pull from 60,000 feet up.

Didn't the shuttle launch of the back of a jumbo jet back in the day? 

@Ian2:Not exactly.  They did/do ship it around like that, and they also checked it's landing characteristics by flying it up on the back of a jet and letting it coast in for a landing, but it never actually launched off a jet.

6 minutes ago,Ian2 wrote

*snip*

Didn't the shuttle launch of the back of a jumbo jet back in the day? 

All the fuel (and oxidizer) for the three main engines is in that big brown tank.

End of an era indeed. I hope NSF picks up the slack on the basic research department, what with NASA's budget getting raped and all.