In case anyone wasn't aware (didn't see a thread yet)... Shuttle Discovery took off from Cape Kennedy at approximately 9:40am central time. Everything was picture perfect, and the flight directors did not receive any off-nominal reports. I have to admit I was crying like a baby when the countdown reached 0 and the boosters ignited! Good luck to STS-114 and we wish them a safe journey home! -monkey
The takeoff looked perfect and the new cameras sent some cool images I understand you work at NASA Supermonkey, what do you do exactly ? Diid you have a priviledged view of the takeoff ?
Good to hear. I will be keeping my fingers crossed for a safe re-entry. It only bothers me that the Space Shuttle is like, 20 years old... We don't drive cars that old. We really need something a bit more up-to-date now...
Cost per car in it's whole lifetime? few thousand. Cost per shuttle? few million. Id like to see my car get the attention of a trained NASA crew before i went on every journey.
It's not as cool as it sounds. I work in Configuration Management in the Space Station program. Essentially, it is our job to make sure that everyone is reading from the same book and working from the same set of engineering drawings. It's the business end of the program, and I really really really wish I could get into the more interesting aspects of it all. This was one of the most photographed flights ever, with all cameras looking for any evidence at all of tile damage. The result was a better show for us! We all gathered in the auditorium here at Johnson Space Center, where they had live feeds of Mission Control Center - Houston, Launch Control at Kennedy, and various Shuttle feeds (inside, outside, all around). The best part of it was the commentary provided by the 20+ year veteran flight director and the live audio feeds from Mission Control (hearing the commands between the directors and the crew was interesting). Throughout the next 2 weeks they are opening up Mission Control at various times to the employees to watch some of the menouvers. I plan on watching the gyro startup and the end of spacewalk #3. Too true. That has been one of the major concerns recently. The Shuttle fleet is scheduled to officially retire around 2010, but a new vehicle won't come along until 2015-ish. Looks like we'll be depending on the Russian rockets for several years.
I just saw pictures taken from one of the fuel tanks during takeoff...and you can clearly see a part that broke off somewhere flying through the air
The B-52 is a lot more than 20 years old and will be flown for years to come. It's still damn good at its job. Some of the Shuttle systems may be old and not very high tech but "keep it simple stupid" isn't a bad philosophy.
More than likely just ice breaking off the outer surface. Remember the takes are full of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, with the latter at around 5-10 degrees kelvin.
Yep, if you saw anything fly off during liftoff, it is most likely ice or foam. While the new External Tank has a lot of new features to reduce the ice buildup, it can't get rid of it all. Keep in mind the big orange tank you see is only 2mm thick aluminum with about 2-3 inches of foam insulation on the outside. @Dad: It's kind of funny actually. I usually try to stress that I work at NASA, not for NASA (technically, I work for a contractor). It's kind of like being in a military town...everyone here works for NASA. I did get to ride in the elevator with Eileen Collins (we work in the same building), but that's the closest I get to the excitement. -monkey
Still, it's all good. I'd love to have any reference to NASA on my CV. Funny thing about Eileen Collins is that we're from the same home town (Elmira, NY) and she comes back every so often. I have seen her a few times tooling around town and did see her at the grocery store once.
Eh? I suppose I could walk over to the gift shop. They have pjs, though their prices are astronomical! -monkey
absolutely, if you look on the nasa site, they have some really good info on the shuttle and stuff, and some awesome info on the computer systems used in the shuttles and sattelites. its actually quite "old" technology, but its rock solid. i was amazed when i read about some of the stresses the stuff on the shuttle has to go through when its in use, even things like "cosmic radiation". its "old" when compared to the latest uber megagiga zillion hz processors, but it works, and it works no matter how hard it gets hammered by the various stresses. its not about having a fast processor, its about a processor that will work, no matter what happens.
That reminds me of Terry Pratchett's ancient axe, passed down from father to son, that had had a new handle fitted from time to time, and a new head fitted when needed, but was still the same ancient axe. If that's OT, sue me.
Actually today John Shannon (direktor for Shuttle-Operations) said that "it" (that piece flying through the air) damaged/destoyed parts of the heatshielde near the front "Fahrgestellklappe"*(sorry dont know the word in english), but they cant estimate the danger for the crew at this moment... AND a a bird damaged something too, not sure what it was though... ...you must have heard about it supermonkey??? * "Fahrgestellklappe" = Landing gear hatch. --nexxo