RTF May?

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jschaef5

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What are the odds that it will launch in May. I really would like to go down and see it. <br />It would be a nice trip down to florida. I am just now getting my pilot's license and won't be IFR by then so i'll have to go commercial :/ could be hard getting tickets on short notices. Maybe some of my friends will go on a nice long road trip with me <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />Anyways I was just wondering what you guys think about when the first flight will most likely be.<br /><br />Nasa says:<br />"Discovery currently is targeted for launch on the 114th shuttle mission around 4:11 p.m. on May 14. That date is little more than a target, however, and launch easily could slip a few weeks depending on the progress of work to close out open issues."<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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viper101

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Since the ET started to ship - all the news stories are saying 'May or June'. I'm gonna guess that will translaste into July or August. <br />Nasa is going to be very cautious on this one and it's safe to expect that there will be multiple delays once the stack is on the pad. And who can blame them? Everyone knows another Shuttle failure will mean the delay of manned US spaceflight for years to come. <br />
 
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grooble

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If it fails again they'd probably ground the remaining craft permanently.
 
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grooble

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I'm looking forward to it. In images i saw the tank looked yellow, will it be that colour on the day? Or is it covered with something or painted orange?
 
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najab

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><i>In images i saw the tank looked yellow, will it be that colour on the day?</i><p>No. By the launch date, the foam will have cured more and will have it's usual orange colour.</p>
 
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elguapoguano

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Hopefully we will have the next shuttle launch in the May/June timeframe. It's been disapointing how long RTF is taking, right after Columbia broke up, I really thought we'd be back up and running within a year....<br /><br />But no matter what anyone says, the Shuttle is an impressive space vehicle. I Just got back from DC a couple weeks ago and while I was there made the trek to the Hazy center in Dulles and got to see Enterprise up close and personal. Compared to Apollo era return hardware, the Shuttle is huge! Here's a shot I got of Enterprise, from the rear. It's amazing how far the tail sticks in the air... <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#ff0000"><u><em>Don't let your sig line incite a gay thread ;>)</em></u></font> </div>
 
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rocketwatcher2001

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I love the Shuttle, have you ever seen the payload bay? It's HUGE!, waaaayyy bigger than my Boeing 727 freighter. It gives me a lot of heartburn to think we are going to retire them while it's replacement is just another dorky little capsule. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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scottb50

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Launch either a dorky little capsule, a six passenger Gemini, or a cargo container using the same vehicle, interchangably. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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rocketwatcher2001

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Scott-<br /><font color="yellow">Launch either a dorky little capsule, a six passenger Gemini, or a cargo container using the same vehicle, interchangably.</font><br /><br />No Sir,<br />Increase the scope of the space program to match the capacity of the spacecraft. We should have 15 Orbiters, servicing 3 totally different space stations, and launching and constructing ships that are going to the moons of Jupiter, and beyond. The Shuttle can do that, and could have been doing that for the past 15 years. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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scottb50

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Well sure it did.<br /><br />Would of been nice though.<br /><br />It would be nice to have 15 orbiters and 3 space stations, but the Shuttle couldn't come close to doing that. The market is not there.<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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jschaef5

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If it got delayed to summer it would be much easier for me to go and see it but the earlier it gets off the ground the better. Will NASA ever do any night launches again? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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rocketwatcher2001

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The market wussed out, not the Shuttle. That's what makes me think we may be teetering on another "Dark Age". <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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rocketwatcher2001

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<font color="yellow">Will NASA ever do any night launches again?</font><br /><br />Yes.<br /><br /><i>CAPE CANAVERAL-- Powerful new radars might enable NASA to stage shuttle liftoffs at night again, freeing the agency of post-Columbia lighting restrictions that severely limit launch opportunities. Strategically placed north and south of NASA's twin shuttle launch pads and aboard a solid rocket booster retrieval ship at sea, the radars will be able to peer through darkness or cloud cover on future flights.</i><br /><br />http://www.floridatoday.com/!NEWSROOM/spacestoryMAIN1225SHUTTLE.htm <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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mrmorris

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<font color="yellow">"The market wussed out, not the Shuttle."</font><br /><br /><b>HUH?</b> I'd really like to know your logic on this statement. Are you indicating that you think the reduction in commercial launch flights affected the shuttle fleet?
 
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rocketwatcher2001

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No-<br />I'm saying that the market never grew to match the Shuttle's full capacity. Plus, NASA got really gun-shy after 51L. It was a mistake to link the Shuttle solely with NASA. I think NASA should have had 4 Orbiter's, The Air Force another 4, and The Navy 4 more. A couple more should have been leased out privately.<br /><br />Sure, the DOD backed out of the Shuttle program, but they should have been forced into using it for a much bigger role, like an Moonbase run by the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Navy putting a manned mission to Jupiter. If they did that in the late 80's and 90's, it would be a whole different world today. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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CalliArcale

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The market did indeed wuss out, and I like that phrase. It's true, though I don't think there was anything intentionally chicken about it. Things just didn't turn out the way people had thought they would 30 years ago. That includes manned space exploration (no big space stations, no interplanetary cruisers built in LEO, no moonbase), military efforts (no manned space weapons platforms, no satellite-destroyer, no satellite-grabber), and commercial efforts. And the last of those has also had a profound impact on the expendable launch vehicles as well. Delta IV and Atlas V were both designed with a massive launch market in mind, but it never happened. Probably the last big blow to the launch business was the bursting of the commsat bubble. People had envisioned thousands of launches of many different payloads every year, enough to support Delta IV, Atlas V, Shuttle, Ariane V, Proton, Sea Launch, Pegasus, Soyuz, Long March, and all sorts of other launchers. But it burst. It's gone. And without the commsats defraying the costs, other pursuits (such as exploration) become more expensive. It's all interconnected. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>
 
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mrmorris

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<font color="yellow">"I'm saying that the market never grew to match the Shuttle's full capacity..."</font><br /><br />Subsidized to the hilt, the shuttle still couldn't compete with Arianne. The Arianne was government subsidized, of course, but not on a par (or even close) with the money NASA shoveled into the shuttle program. I'm not a shuttle hater, but I can't <b>imagine</b> what kind of logic you're using to think that expanding the fleet would have made any sort of sense.
 
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viper101

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So the radar at night thing - I assume this is so we can 'know what went wrong' the next time - is that right? <br /><br />I know it's needed - but...jeez..not exactly a confidence booster is it?
 
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rocketwatcher2001

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How many people could the Arianne launch? What is the biggest payload that the Arianne could *RETURN* from space? It's impossible to compare the Arianne with the Shuttle, it's like comparing my bicycle to my car. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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blairf

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Ariane 5 - man rated. designed for HERMES. (un)fortunately (delete as required) HERMES died on the drawing board.<br /><br />Shuttle - so exactly how many times as the large down mass facility been used in anger?<br /><br />Bicycle to car is not appropriate, maybe Skoda to BMW is better (you decide which is which)<br /><br />
 
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rocketwatcher2001

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Bicycle to car is pretty good, actually. For trips to the corner store the bike is more efficient, it's cheaper to operate. Even with HERMES, the capacity was a lot smaller IIRC.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">Shuttle - so exactly how many times as the large down mass facility been used in anger?</font><br /><br />LDEF, Spacelab, and I'm sure there are plenty of others I can't think of off the top of my head. But I don't want to fall in the trap of using past missions to define what it could have done with a more ambitious group of people calling the shots. The Shuttle was a machine that could have.....no, could still, be the backbone of a program that is so far above and beyond what we have don so far.<br /><br />I think going back to dinky little capsules is an embarrassing mistake. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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jschaef5

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A night shuttle launch would be quite a sight to see <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />I was done on the cape when i was little and they were transporting the shuttle on that slow rig thingy but thats all. I've always wanted to see an actual rocket or shuttle launch. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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rocketwatcher2001

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jsc-<br />It's one of the coolest things in the world. I moved down here because of them. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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mrmorris

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<font color="yellow">"It's impossible to compare the Arianne with the Shuttle"</font><br /><br />You brought up the market and the shuttle and indicated the collapse of the commercial market in some way harmed the shuttle's chances of being more successful than has been the case. Even before the Challenger disaster, Arianne was eating the shuttle's lunch commercially. Every commercial load that went up on the shuttle flew at a loss for NASA. Flying more of them would simply have made the loss bigger. NASA might well have been happy for an excuse to stop flying commercial payloads... except that with that and the simultaneous loss of most military payloads, the shuttles were a fleet without a purpose. And thus Space Station Freedom was conceived (later to be aborted and then reincarnated as ISS, of course)...<br /><br />Also -- the benefit of the shuttle's payload return capability is only important if something needs to be returned. For the vast majority of commercial or military or scientific launches, that's simply not the case. At these times -- the necessity of having to return the huge mass of the orbiters to earth is a massive liability.<br /><br />A dinky capsule might not make you happy, but it has the potential to make the money spent on space programs go a heckuva lot further than shoveling barrelfuls of cash to constantly lift the mass of the orbiters to LEO for a minimal return. Shuttle launches are very pretty -- I've seen lots of them. However -- I'd much rather see 20 launches of a six person capsule at 33 million a pop than a single shuttle launch at 600 million.
 
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rocketwatcher2001

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Morris-<br /><font color="yellow">You brought up the market and the shuttle and indicated the collapse of the commercial market in some way harmed the shuttle's chances of being more successful than has been the case.</font><br /><br />Nope, not even close. My point is that the Shuttle has a capacity that far exceeds the scope of the program. The Shuttle is a lot more than just a satelite launcher, which is what all of those smaller rockets were/are. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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