STS-135 - The Final Space Shuttle Mission

Berserker · 8 Jul 2011 at 18:55

Columbia was not successful. Seven lives were lost.

starfighter · 8 Jul 2011 at 18:55

No doubt it did some great stuff Beserker, I just feel a massive capsule could have done the same stuff in space but not the whole landing on a runway thing, or perhaps that wasn't that hard to do and not a major cause of the safety issues anyway.

Anyway there isn't much to compare it to so we don't know. RIP Space Shuttle.

PermaBanned · 8 Jul 2011 at 19:03

Berserker said:
Columbia was not successful. Seven lives were lost.

I know that, but they weren't lost in vain - they achieved everything they set out to do, apart from re-entry.

Domo · 8 Jul 2011 at 21:13

I MISSED THE LAUNCH!! Was convinced they would delay it. Gutted. Just gutted.
Just watched a repeat on the Beeb.

The guys narrating: "Four and a half million pounds of hardware and humans" - Love it

Space Shuttle - I will miss you.

Domo · 8 Jul 2011 at 21:18

simulatorman said:
It will be supplied by the Russian Progress spacecraft:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_(spacecraft))

And the ESA's ATV
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_Transfer_Vehicle

PermaBanned · 9 Jul 2011 at 01:36

No video from the crew or of the bay doors opening this time unfortunately, i hope they're not too swamped to do it for the rest of the mission with just the four of them.

Berserker · 9 Jul 2011 at 01:43

Missed the mission control replay. Would have loved to have seen what happened at T-31.

Checked the ISS flight path but there's no UK night passes until about 28th July, which is obviously far too late for any observing. Pity.

PermaBanned · 9 Jul 2011 at 01:53

Haha, had me on the edge of my seat. It sounded like it was just someone not being able to confirm that one of the camera's or tower arms was out of the way.

Limpnoodle · 9 Jul 2011 at 02:21

So how are we gonna get people up to the iss, i know how we wil get them back down again through the russians,

Berserker · 9 Jul 2011 at 03:10

PermaBanned said:
Haha, had me on the edge of my seat. It sounded like it was just someone not being able to confirm that one of the camera's or tower arms was out of the way.

It was caused by the LOX vent arm ("beanie cap"). The 'retracted' indicators didn't trigger so the GLS computers stopped the count as a safety precaution.

This was obviously a condition that had been foreseen so the launch commit procedure was already in place to deal with it by visually inspecting the arm using a camera. That's what they did.

Limpnoodle said:
So how are we gonna get people up to the iss, i know how we wil get them back down again through the russians,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_(spacecraft)

Mikeyboy · 9 Jul 2011 at 06:39

Berserker said:
Nominal MECO. ET Sep. Go +X, Go Pitch.

I know we have a few left to hear (On energy approaching the HAC, on at the 90/180 etc) but I have to say that I'm going to miss these calls. Not only because they're part of a safe and successful mission, but also because we're never going to hear them, or probably anything similar, again.

ubersonic · 9 Jul 2011 at 15:38

starfighter said:
It was always a fail design. What exactly does it do hat a capsule cannot, it looks like a plane which means it can land on a runway where as a capsule uses a parachute. not exactly that useful really.

Weird isn't it, I mean, What other possible motivations at the height of the cold war would the USA have had to build a (relatively) manoeuvrable spacecraft that could carry nuclear weapons and evade the entire soviet air defence and early warning systems

Berserker said:
Can a capsule bring major external spares to the ISS? No.

Soyuz has been doing that since the Russians first built the ISS hasn't it? agree with everything else you said though.

starfighter said:
No doubt it did some great stuff Beserker, I just feel a massive capsule could have done the same stuff in space but not the whole landing on a runway thing, or perhaps that wasn't that hard to do and not a major cause of the safety issues anyway.

Anyway there isn't much to compare it to so we don't know.

Actually the is, if used offensively the shuttle could have been an unstoppable nuclear bomber and so the USSR launched its own space shuttle program which used a shuttle that (because it came later) was actually more advanced than the american one (Starship Buran). The program was shelved after the fall of communism and when the Russian economy took off again it stayed there, Soyuz can do the job just as well and much cheaper/safer.

If your upset about the USA scaling down its space projects then check out what Russia is doing, they are already planning a successor to the ISS (the ISS was originally MIR 2 but they ran out of cash and so everyone else came on board as the Russians are the best at space stations). In addition to this they have a successor for Soyuz in the works and as crazy as it sounds they are even planning a lunar space station.

PermaBanned · 9 Jul 2011 at 16:19

I'm sorry, but there's no way Buran was made to be a nuclear bomber.

Darg · 9 Jul 2011 at 17:24

PermaBanned said:
I'm sorry, but there's no way Buran was made to be a nuclear bomber.

Read through the wiki page on it, it seems to have been designed as a counter to the possibility of a military threat from the US shuttle. Perhaps it wasn't necessarily meant as a nuclear bomber but it seems logical.

PermaBanned · 9 Jul 2011 at 17:35

The Shuttle was designed to have such a large payload so the military could launch spy satellites on it, and if the military weren't involved then they wouldn't have been able to afford it. That's well known. The idea that either could be used to carry nuclear bombs is just absurd, for starters - what if something went wrong at any point? Can you imagine the devastation it would cause if it blew up during launch?

Also, they're hardly unstoppable - just shoot some tiles off the bottom and it's done for.

IceBus · 9 Jul 2011 at 17:59

PermaBanned said:
Can you imagine the devastation it would cause if it blew up during launch?

Actually not that much - comparable to a dirty bomb going off, which wouldn't be that severe as Cape is in the middle of nowhere comparatively. Nuclear weapons need triggers to detonate, they don't just 'blow up' if they go on fire/are in an explosion.

Glaucus · 9 Jul 2011 at 18:32

ubersonic said:
snip.

would like to see a capsule do the Hubble upgrades/servicing.
As well as the satellite capture they did. As well as Certain missions they did building the ISS and probably more. Also no space vehicle now has the carrying capacity or size. Shuttle had to be kept to build the ISS as no other system could launch certain segments due to size.
The movability, huge open cargo bay and the Canadian robotic arm, makes it invaluable.

Cosimo · 10 Jul 2011 at 07:58

Mission control is back in action, so a couple of stunners from the launch:

Cosimo · 10 Jul 2011 at 08:25

Flight Day 1 highlights

Yesterday we had:

Flight Day 2

• Atlantis’ Thermal Protection System heat shield survey with Shuttle Robotic Arm/ Orbiter Boom Sensor System (OBSS)
• Centerline Camera Installation
• Orbiter Docking System Ring Extension
• Rendezvous tools checkout

The crew will get their wake up call in four minutes and the plan for today is:

Flight Day 3:

• Rendezvous with the International Space Station
• Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver Photography of Atlantis’ Thermal Protection System by Expedition 28 crew members Fossum and Furukawa
• Docking to Harmony/Pressurized Mating Adapter-2
• Hatch Opening and Welcoming
• Canadarm2 robotic arm handoff of OBSS to Shuttle robotic arm

Docking will be at 16:09 BST (11:09 EDT)

PermaBanned · 10 Jul 2011 at 12:03

Shame, looks like they are too busy to do as much crew video as we've had previously - that's what i loved about STS-134, it really brought out the human side of things.

Also, perfect choice: