Warbird Information Exchange

I can't help but feel as though we've slipped a little as a Superpower with the grounding of the Shuttle. I'm not very optimistic of any viable follow-on manned program withing the next 10-15 years. Russia just declared "The era of Soyuz has begun" and we have essentially turned control of our 100 billion dollar+ Space Station (that the Shuttle Astronauts built) over to the Russians. Now they are about to jack the price of a Soyuz ride up from 50 million a seat to 63 million. We've taken a fantastic capability (the Shuttle), at the peak of it's operational capability and shelved it without anything remotely capable of having the ability to perform like it or anything to step into it's place. We'll probably never again see American astronauts at the controls of a winged vehicle making a landing on US soil in a dignified manner. Our aerospace industries will suffer enormous setbacks from this stand-down (read about the history of the Shuttle External Fuel Tank and what it took to make it lighter over the years). Manned space flight, unlike anything else, drives science, technology and aerospace at phenomenal rates.
I see this as a turning point and its not a good thing...

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"Everyone wants to live here (New Jersey), evidenced by the fact that it has the highest population per capita in the U.S..."

The more I think about what all this means, the more PO'd I get, so I try to remember the good times I experienced like launches, seeing the ISS fly overhead - even though it was just a white light, or when I got to walk through the shuttle transport aircraft at Ellington with a shuttle sitting on top.

To paraphrase and read between the lines of launch director Mike Leinbach, it is a mistake to completely stop flying the shuttle when we have no other flying platform already up and running. You have to have contingency plans. If somethying goes wrong with Soyuz, we have no means to get to the ISS. The ISS would in short time, be in jeopardy. The astronauts, cosmonauts, and all that hardware that costs billions would have no lifeline. What would we do?

Something else that is really disappointing to think about is that some in NASA "think" we won't be launching people or heavy hardware for at least ten years. Glad I was around to see the shuttle in action. "It was the most capable space vehicle ever!" ML

Tommy

Not really a shuttle mission, but, when our local Morning Zoo DJ announced that the Shuttle had to be diverted to San Diego due to bad weather and would land at Montgomery Field. The crowds showed up, the media showed up and fnally someone figured out that it was April the 1st!

My late friend Clair pulled a great prank. Our friend had his own private airstrip for his few airplanes and a few friends. Our friend wanted to get a really nice sign made that had the name of his airfield on it. So he had this beautiful wooden sign made and had it put up at the road that led to the hangars from the main road. He then headed out for a vacation. During this time my freind Clair had another sign made that read, "Alternate landing site for the Space Shuttle". He had it hung up there a day or two after our friend had his sign up. When he returned there were a bunch of people standing by the front gate getting their pictures taken.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

I did not Steve. I had to work and could not get anyone to cover me( Those that were off wanted to see the shuttle). sometimes it seems that having a job means that you give up having a life. With WSMR only about 70 miles from the house that would have been an easy trip.

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Had God intended for man to fly behind inline engines, Pratt & Whitney would have made them.

CB

http://www.angelfire.com/dc/jinxx1/Desrt_Wings.html

I had a great tee shirt back in the '80's that said "A Space Ship Has Landed on Earth" on the back, and on the front was a great head-on view of a shuttle landing. My favorite memory was working in the helo hangar at Van Nuys and (having the official flight schedule from my uncle at NASA), telling the guys to stop working and just listen for 30 seconds....we'd all wait and then "boom-BOOM"! Shuttle arriving! And you could set your watch to those two sonic booms coming off that cranked arrow wing as the shuttle went sub-sonic on it's way into Edwards. Once on the way into work my wife and I even decided at the last moment to blow off work, turned the car around and headed up to Edwards to watch "Challenger" land--it's last landing in fact. T'was a thing of wonder and beauty to see and hear!

On a separate note, maybe try to think of this ending of the era as similar to when barnstorming ended and commercial airliners started...a sort of transition era where spaceflight will go over to the commercial sector. Google up "Space X" and "Virgin Galactic" to see what's on the way.

And by the way, we do, in fact, have another shuttle that has logged two flights, so we do actually have a craft we can use to get to ISS if need be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37

--Tom

Heretical opinion, here.....

Actually this is one decision The One made that I can actually agree with:

The shuttle was a huge failure and a tremendous drain on resources. It was for more dangerous to fly than the old expendables and fantastically more costly. It never came close to it's intended flight rates.

Each flight cost $500 million.

The shuttle contributed to making access to space a ride for only a very few lucky people. The shuttle - and the silly gubbmint follow on lifter programs - is and are nothing more than political pork to be protected. If you've been following the various lifter program ideas coming out of NASA and the government, you'll see that the first principle followed is to keep the present shuttle contractors working on shuttle components....regardless as to whether using the solids or the main engines gives you a lousy design. And they only considered the old hoary majors like Lockmart and Boeing for contractors.

For example, the last proposal wanted to use the shuttle main liquid engines for the rocket. And not recover them. And so since there are only 15 of those left, you get 15 flights and then...oblivion.

And note: wishing the shuttle to end DOES NOT equal wishing US manned space flight to end, nor is it a wish for US space dominance to end.

It is long past the time when the US should treat space rides like airline rides. Space-X has built a very nice flight record and has a dedicated growth path and has done it all for about $350 million. Price per pound to orbit is 1/10.... one tenth! the shuttle cost. Check out their web page and read about Falcon 1, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy.
They are just one example which shows that private, well run, companies can do it better, cheaper, faster, more reliably.

In 1985 I was on vacation with my family to Florida and we went out to the Cape. That day, there was one shuttle on the 'transporter' at the pad. One shuttle in the Vehicle Assembly Building. One shuttle on it's feet in the hangar. And as we were standing in line to get on the tour bus, the fourth shuttle came in and landed on the back of the 747. I just thought that, short of a launch, that was kind of cool to see all four on the same day in the different stages of 'life'.

Closest I got to a launch was about 10 years later when I was flying out of NAS Jax, and we went out to the beach on a clear spring morning and watched the distant sky light up the darkness from the south. Not nearly as cool as being there in person, I'm sure...but it was kind of surreal none-the-less.

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Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives, and I decline......

I see the shuttle and think only of our lost leadership. We're just sticking out our thumbs hoping for a ride now.

I will remember that my Dad was one of the many thousands, one of the little guys way behind the scenes, who helped make it all happen...


Fade to Black...

I found this online...author unknown. I thought it just about said it all....

The End of US Manned Space Flight

Since the end of the glory days of the first Apollo missions NASA has
always been on the bottom of the governments priority
list, and the first place they look, (after the military) to cut funding. The
space program is a victim of the same government inaction,
mishandling, and paralysis that has lead to the current economic disaster, and
why nothing substantive ever really gets done. The problem is there
is no destination, nowhere to go. The original premise for the space
station, and the Shuttle was as a stepping stone to the Moon, and later
on to Mars. The Moon is the key, and always has been. You need to
establish a permanent, self sustaining and eventually economically viable
base on the Moon in order for space exploration to make sense
economically, and as with all things, it all comes down to dollars. That would
require a consistent, very long term, and horrifyingly expensive
commitment, and with the current set of political leaders in the pipeline, I
don't think there is a snow ball's chance in hell of that ever happening.
No one nation could do it alone. It would require the
resources of the world, and cooperation on an unprecedented scale. In a time
when the major world powers will soon be at each other's throats over the
worlds dwindling supply of oil and financial self-destruction while
trying to cope with global terrorism and overpopulation, that's not likely
to occur. It's a shame. Colonizing the moon might have saved us.
With it as a base we could have used the vast resources of the solar
system. Our civilization is based on expansion, growth and our current
woes are a symptom of a civilization in decline as it reaches its limits.
Someday, not that far in the future, our grandchildren will look
up at the moon and tell their own children and grandchildren that men
once walked on its surface. Living in squalor in a new dark age,
amid the ruins and detritus of our once great civilization, I wonder if
they will even believe it.

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"Everyone wants to live here (New Jersey), evidenced by the fact that it has the highest population per capita in the U.S..."

I'll miss BOOM! BOOM!

The X-37 is no where close to being capable of a rescue mission to the ISS. Re-instating the shuttle would be a more viable option, and that would mean pulling one from a museum and starting over. So, we're back to having no vehicle if anything happens to Soyuz.



No sense commenting on this since I ignored everything after the second full line. What a waste of a post.

No sense commenting on this since I ignored everything after the second full line. What a waste of a post.[/quote]

And yet you did.

What a waste of a comment.

"You need to establish a permanent, self sustaining and eventually economically viable
base on the Moon in order for space exploration to make sense economically, and as with all things, it all comes down to dollars"
Whatever. There is nothing on the moon, there has never been a valid scientific reason for going there, and no less an authority than Werner Von Braun said that the moon is a waste of time. The original plan for space exploration called for rockets to boost components into earth orbit and then use the earths gravity to slingshot space vehicles out into the universe. So, it seems that we are returning to the original pure plan for outer space exploration. If the shuttle needs to be put out to pasture so that NASA can return to doing innovative things, as opposed to just being a caretaker agency for shuttle flights , then so be it.
I think the shuttle is an awesome asset to our country and should be keep operational on a limited basis, but obviously the powers that be have decided it's time to move on. And whatever your politics it has to be understood that the shuttle IS incredibly expensive and policy is not made based on the fact that some 11 year old girls may want to be astronauts when they grow up. The senior leaders and engineers of NASA have known the program was coming to a close for years now, so all of you who insist on blaming the (legally elected) President for everything wrong in the world need to get a life.

Saw Endeavor launch back in may. very cool!!!
Just my opinions, everybody's got one.

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All I did was press this red button here...