The last one

[Jak Nazryth]

I just watched the last shuttle launch.
Both proud and sad.
I remember well the first shuttle launch in 1981, I was in 7th grade, on my parents crappy black and white, grainy TV way out on our family farm.
Thank you shuttle for 30 years of service.
Not a bad run for 1970's technology.

Now... where are my flying cars!?

 

[AndrewW]

I just watched the last shuttle launch.
Both proud and sad.
I remember well the first shuttle launch in 1981, I was in 7th grade, on my parents crappy black and white, grainy TV way out on our family farm.
Thank you shuttle for 30 years of service.
Not a bad run for 1970's technology.

I watched it as well (still have NASA TV on)...

Not out of service just yet, got to wait till it gets back down to earth.

 

[BP]

Yeah - that really gives me a nostalgic feeling - end of an era in a way.

Like leaving home behind.

I have fond memories of playing in the Enterprise (the wooden shuttle), playing in the cockpit simulator at JSC (and getting in trouble ), sneaking into mission control (and getting escorted out by MPs ), playing in an MMU rig (and, oh yeah, really getting in trouble ) and the anticipation during hours of waiting through launch delays and cancellations and the national shock of the first shuttle disaster.

Lump in the throat time, indeed.

 

[zero]

I was not alive when the first shuttle launch happened, my parents were still just going out...

Anyways, I'm also a bit down about this moment in history. Hopefully in the next few decades we'll see fruits to the program to get to Mars and the belt.

Apparently there was a NASA plan to set up a base on Mars in the 2050s, but this has been pulled back to just a manned mission there.

Lets hope for the best and wish well for the future, for now the space age has come to a close

 

[Captain Jonah]

End of an Era.

Still we have russian, european and soon chinese and indian rockets. Plus Mr Branson will save the space program :shock:

Bit sad realy. I watched men walk on the moon live, I watched the first and last shuttles.

Someone better get anti aging working, If i have to wait till 2050 for a man on mars I may be too old to appreciate it

 

[rust]

Lets hope for the best and wish well for the future, for now the space age has come to a close

Nope, Russia and China will continue their manned space programs, and
India is about to begin a manned space program, while Europe and Japan
will continue to take part in international manned space activities. The end
of the shuttle is only really important from a US point of view, it certainly
does not end the space age. :wink:

 

[Dave Chase]

Hopefully, if the United States Government doesn't get in the way, Free enterprise business will pick up the slack and make a profit at it too.

Dave Chase

 

[rust]

Plus, the cost for the transport of material to a low Earth orbit with the
shuttle was about 18,000 USD per kilogram, while a Proton rocket does
it for 5,000 USD per kilogram - less than a third. Shipping the parts of
the ISS into orbit with the space shuttle was the most expensive and
wasteful method available.

 

[Liam Devlin]

And then, what next?

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/07/07/will-this-spaceship-replace-shuttle/

Any of these?

http://www.space.com/2-top-10-fantasy-spaceships-headed-reality.html

I note the preponderance of private sector investment here, and take hope we may see a brighter future ahead.

 

[Fovean]

I feel the retirement of the shuttle is indeed the end of an era, but nowhere near the end of the space age (despite The Economist's doom-and-gloom cover story this week, and the hand-wringing here in the States about NASA layoffs and the snowball effects of such). It's sad to me to see the shuttle go (sadder that I missed the final launch! ) but it's high time to move to a more robust Space Transportation System.

I think there will be a strong two-pronged approach via the private sector to keep the space dream alive: Sir Branson and Virgin Galactic to create a space-tourism sector among the wealthy (who, one hopes, will get the bug and become future investors) and nuts-and-bolts, supply-the-ISS and fix-our-GPS-satellites approach from Elon Musk and Space X. There are obviously a lot of other companies out there trying out designs too.

No, the space age is alive and well. NASA, not so much.

 

[BP]

It is often missed that part of NASA's primary mandate deals with 'National Interests'... it is a civilian operation that jointly works with other agencies for meeting that mandate... and has also often been dependent on facilities, resources and personnel outside itself.

A substantial portion of the funds, directly and indirectly, for development and support of the Shuttle program came from the Military. Critical operational requirements for the Shuttle were dictated by Military needs of the time... political 'expediencies' destroyed the program's schedule (not to mention lives), causing the Military to 'find' alternate means of meeting their needs. This changed part of the driving need for the Shuttle program - and affected its funding and priority for continuation. Much of these funds are not counted in NASA's budget per se (nor factored into the earth to orbit payload estimates).

The Shuttle program factored big in my early life - and has done so for many others. But, it never was the sum of America's space program. I've heard about the doom and gloom of NASA's 'budget cuts' all my life. However, my dad built instruments for NASA for over 30 years - I have no idea how many projects, but its a good number - and not one was 'chopped'.

Sometimes 'budgets' are just the tool an agency uses internally to kill projects they never should have started in the first place... and all government funded agencies have an interest in PR regards their budgets.

Anyway, the promise of the U.S. government actually investing and supporting private sector space enterprises is quite encouraging. Especially in so far as it puts an extra layer between politicians and actual use of public monies. It also helps separate such endeavors from military applications (even SBIR funds are largely military controlled), whose focus is, by necessity, different than those typically associated with NASA and opening space to the masses...

The end of the Space Shuttle era may indeed be the beginning of the Commercialization of Space era. Ultimately this will likely benefit NASA.

 

[Treebore]

I'm ready for the bucky balls to be put to use.

 

[rust]

I would also hope that a greater distance between the military and the
space activities would make international cooperation at least a little ea-
sier, in the past lots of money had to be spent for re-inventing the wheel
several times in different countries because the military blocked coopera-
tions out of fear that its yesterday's secrets could be discovered by some
remotely potential hostile power (which sometimes seemed to include eve-
ryone from Andorra to Switzerland).

Commercial "spacers" will also protect their technologies, but probably
with less extreme paranoia and with enough business sense to realize
that lower costs through cooperation can be more useful than keeping
secrets, and that selling a technology usually is more profitable than
hiding it.

 

[BP]

Good point. Commercial enterprises have a different set of goals that can respond to information and asset sharing more readily than military (they can take risks where it would be unwise, or require more analysis in a military sense - dollars vs. security).

There are other disadvantages when the military is tied in. There were many projects (pure research) my dad worked on where he couldn't know when or if the payload would actually be launched... one project in particular they figured had been cancelled or failed because the known launch windows had long passed - when suddenly telemetry data began being received and the instrument responding.

International cooperation has really boomed in the last decade or so especially between NASA, ESA and American companies - though I haven't heard of anything with India or China.

 

[rust]

China asked for a slot on the ISS, but the USA did not like the idea, and
there is also a US embargo for satellite launches with Chinese launch sy-
stems, so there is currently little hope for any space cooperation between
the USA and China. However, Europe and Russia continue to cooperate
with China, Europe mainly in the unmanned space sciences projects and
Russia mainly in the manned projects.

India cooperates with almost every nation which has a space program, in-
cluding China and the USA, which has removed India from the Entity List
in January 2011 to make an increased cooperation possible.

 

[Fovean]

Entity List?

 

[BP]

The Commerce Department's export control list.

I knew there was talk of China cooperation with the ISS - not surprised it didn't pan out...

That is good news for both India and the U.S. - though I fear for the commercial sector astronauts!

• Hello... my name is... Joe.
  
  I will be happys to be assisting you today with you problem you have with Systems Inertial of Units Guidance ... [sounds of page flipping] ... please to be telling me if IDU you be having is to be displaying the color blue tone...

 

[rust]

Entity List?

This one:

http://www.bis.doc.gov/entities/default.htm

It is basically a method to ensure that free trade does not really become free. :roll: