Space Shuttle End Of An Era

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14193140

Space shuttle leaves space station for the last time

Farewell space shuttle, the end of an era after 135 missions.

I wanted to run alongside it as it left but the whole atmosphere/head exploding thing kinda put me off....

(19-07-2011 12:47 )Chimpy Wrote:  I wanted to run alongside it as it left but the whole atmosphere/head exploding thing kinda put me off....

I thought you'd already been into space?

I heard this guy on the news saying that private companies are going to start missions to space, dont know if thats right but sounded interesting

(22-07-2011 19:50 )steven6 Wrote:  I heard this guy on the news saying that private companies are going to start missions to space, dont know if thats right but sounded interesting

Yes I heard that it would private companies doing it in the future.
I wonder if my bank manager would give me a loan to start up a business taking trips into space.

(22-07-2011 19:50 )steven6 Wrote:  I heard this guy on the news saying that private companies are going to start missions to space, dont know if thats right but sounded interesting

Heres a few under consideration.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14089297

there's a show on 7:30 saturday evening channel 4 called 'the space shuttle's last flight'. might be worth a look!

When I was a kid I remember watching a rocket going up on TV and saying to my Dad "I wish I could be shot into space" to which he replied "if your mother hadn't been drunk that night you probably would have been!!"

Although the Shuttle's history is marked by tragedy, it remains one of NASA's greatest achievements in my opinion.

For sure, my hobby would have been a lot less interesting without the remarkable mission that re-calibrated Hubble and corrected the flaw in its main reflector.

An interesting programme on the BBC tomorrow night: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01...l_Mission/

One of the lesser known episodes in this form of space travel was "Buran", the USSR's equivalent of the Space Shuttle.

Just like "Concordski", Buran was based on stolen Shuttle plans:-



It only flew once, before the project was cancelled in the late 80s - almost certainly on cost grounds:



The Shuttle avoided the same fate because it was partly funded by the US military - the main reason for its great size (so it could carry military satellite payloads). Ironically is was the resulting flawed design that was responsible for the tragic accidents in later missions.

I have some great pictures of the original (incredibly beautiful) Shuttle designs (it was much smaller and carried on an integral "rocket wing") - I'll try and dig them out sometime and post a couple.