Last Space Shuttle Flight

[charlotte49er]

(Sorry it won't allow me to imbed this video.)

30 years we have had the space shuttle. IMO, it's a waste to let it fade away!

[Hawk]

hopefully there is a plan in place to spend trillions of dollars to replace it

[cookinwithgas]

Every launch is rolling the dice. It's lacking a reliable crew escape system and relies on rockets that you cannot shut down to get it off the ground, and fragile heat tiles to get it back down. One gliding landing attempt as well. The original design had a crewed, liquid fueled booster to take the shuttle up, a cockpit ejection system, and small jet engines to allow powered flight after reentry. All cut for budget reasons.

It's amazing technology, but so far we have not come up with a safer, more reliable way to get people into space than what the Russians have been using since the 1960s.

[Jangler]

Gonna be so cool when the ISS falls from the sky.

[cookinwithgas]

Fun Fact: Skylab was going to be serviced by the Space Shuttle, with it's first visit being to correct the orbit of it. The Shuttle program was delayed by engine and other issues and was therefore unable to save it.

[Hawk]

Gonna be so cool when the ISS falls from the sky.

hopefully it breaks into two pieces...one to land on Atlanta, the other on Dallas...with some entrails spread all over St. Louis.

[Chaos]

Gonna be so cool when the ISS falls from the sky.

These are the coordinates for where it will crash to earth:

36 degrees 5' 59" N and 80 degrees 14' 39" W.

Look it up.

[charlotte49er]

hopefully it breaks into two pieces...one to land on Atlanta, the other on Dallas...with some entrails spread all over St. Louis.

I'm kinda hoping it falls On Foxboro stadium during a Patriots-Chargers game!

Seriously, does it occur to anyone that the US has seemed to go downhill since we reached the moon? All the technology that came out of JFK's vision of landing a man on the moon.

We were the leader in electronics, then it became Japan and now it's Korea. (Probably China isn't too far away.)

Cars, the US was the leader in cars, now it's Japan and soon to be Korea.

The US fed the world. Now, South America out produces the US in corn crops.

Even technology. Japan now turns out 4 engineers for ever 1 in the US.

(I think even India beat the US for turning out engineers.)

I guess once you reach the moon, what do you do for an encore?

[Jangler]