** The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond **

[Cosimo]

With the Space Shuttle program having ended many people have expressed a desire not to lose touch with missions into space. So here we are with one thread to cover:

• Missions
• Technology
• Research
• Anything else spaceflight related

Now that Juno mission is on the way we can look forward to these:

http://www.nasa.gov/missions/highlights/schedule.html​

All important but the big one is Mars Science Laboratory (MSL):

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/​

 

[Cosimo]

Meanwhile life continues on the International Space Station. On August 3rd Russian cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Alexander Samokutyaev carried out a spacewalk on the Russian segment of the space station:

They moved a cargo boom, installed a prototype laser communications system and deployed an amateur radio micro-satellite. The spacewalk took six hours and twenty three minutes.

 

[jr1104]

Nice idea for a thread, will be interesting to follow.

 

[Edrof]

Yup^, will pop in and out of it , although the extent of my knowledge is the Google star map app on my SG2

 

[Guerrilla]

Good stuff simulatorman, will definitely be keeping an eye on this

 

[d_brennen]

Subbed

Real shame the Shuttle program has ended, even bigger shame there isn't an improved craft to take over ready or the willingness to push for one.

If all nations donated 0.1% of their GDP to space flight instead of waging futile wars and ill judged aid programs over the last 20 years we'd be colonising Mars and looking further afield

 

[GarethSouthgate]

I totally missed this:

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2011/aug/HQ_M11-159_Mars_Brief.html

Did anyone watch it?

 

[Rroff]

If all nations donated 0.1% of their GDP to space flight instead of waging futile wars and ill judged aid programs over the last 20 years we'd be colonising Mars and looking further afield

<insert Carl Sagan quote here>

 

[Westyfield2]

<Subscribes>

 

[PermaBanned]

Yes, the end of the Shuttle was very sad, but somehow the media has managed to blow even that completely out of proportion. This is not the end, this is the end of the beginning

 

[Nate--IRL--]

Excellent stuff Simulatorman, a consolidated thread is a great idea.

/subscribes

Nate

 

[Cosimo]

I mentioned the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission earlier. Here is something to whet your appetite:

​

 

[Freakbro]

Wow, they are really going to try and land it like that this time?

 

[Combat squirrel]

Great thread! I will contribute where I can

 

[teaboy5]

What is the point in going into space? Why waste billions so we can land a wee RC car on some rock with nothing but dust on it.

Spend that money coming up with different types of energy on earth.

I see going into space as a massive waste of time and money.

 

[Monkeynut]

What is the point in going into space? Why waste billions so we can land a wee RC car on some rock with nothing but dust on it.

Spend that money coming up with different types of energy on earth.

I see going into space as a massive waste of time and money.

The "RC car" they send is designed to analyse the environment and it's elements in great detail. The data generated from that, as well as the research put in to getting it to Mars etc in the first place, will be useful in other fields like material science.

People think that we can just go "right let's just research this" but that's not possible, every field affects every other field and in engineering you will find yourself using solutions developed for completely different purposes.

 

[GarethSouthgate]

What is the point in going into space? Why waste billions so we can land a wee RC car on some rock with nothing but dust on it.

Spend that money coming up with different types of energy on earth.

I see going into space as a massive waste of time and money.

Resources on Earth are finite....time we started looking else where. There are also a lot of advances in technology gained by space travel.

 

[d_brennen]

What is the point in going into space? Why waste billions so we can land a wee RC car on some rock with nothing but dust on it.

Spend that money coming up with different types of energy on earth.

I see going into space as a massive waste of time and money.

Pushing the boundaries up there brings great advances down here too

 

[PermaBanned]

I mentioned the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission earlier. Here is something to whet your appetite:

​

Hmm... i didn't know there was sound in space, thank you NASA for teaching me that

 

[PermaBanned]

A couple of mistakes but still, that looked like A LOT of fun