Fly well Discovery!

[dunwitch]

Well our bird is up and apparently unscathed. What a huge relief for all of us. Congrats and thanks both to the hardworking folks at NASA, for putting Americans back into space, and to Russia for helping us through our time of crisis with her excellent hardware. Let's hope the next 20 space missions go well and we can put the remaining shuttles in a (rather large) museum. I wish all of my tax money was as well spent as that which goes to NASA.

Thirty years from now, we will probably be thinking about retiring our next-gen spaceships, and just think about what we will have learned from them! In the meantime, we will probably have visited another planet, discovered a few thousand new worlds, and probably solved some of the more perplexing riddles of the cosmos.

I hope they can spare enough time to buttress Hubble against decrepitude before the shuttles are retired, or even strive to replace Hubble with a bigger multiscope array at the appropriate Lagrange point. Think of how the world will change once we know there is another earthlike planet spinning out there somewhere!

Maybe it's the pioneer blood of my ancestors talking, but I'm excited about the future of spaceflight, and this discussion area seems lonely. Every time I look at the star-filled sky, whether through a scope or with my naked eyes, I can't help but wonder what is out there; what is spinning around each star I spy ... are there worlds like this one perhaps? Who knows ... but at least we are trying to find out, instead of just looking at our feet.

Keep looking UP!

[EricS]

Yeah, it's so good to see that the shuttle is up and in orbit. I can't imagine what the view must be like from up there!

Eric Smestad

[SEmert]

It's sad to hear the TV reports that due to the single chunk of foam that broke off the external fuel tank, even though it apparently didn't harm the shuttle, NASA will again be grounding all future shuttle flights until they can determine how to keep the foam from falling off the tanks.

Perhaps it really is time for a new reusable space vehicle design... perhaps two... one smaller one for hauling a few people to and from earth orbit platforms like the ISS, and one larger truck version for larger payloads inserted directly into higher orbits.

The compromise design of the current shuttle is really starting to show its age and is costing huge dollars in patching problems, money that could be better spent in developing a new vehicle.

[Dick Jacobson]

Perhaps it really is time for a new reusable space vehicle design... perhaps two...

For the moon/Mars initiative there will almost certainly be two types of boosters, one for astronauts and one for cargo. The exact design will be decided during the next year. For the astronauts, NASA Administrator Mike Griffin currently favors using one of the shuttle solid-rocket boosters, with a second-stage rocket and a small capsule on top. For cargo, he favors using a configuration similar to the shuttle boosters and tank, but replacing the orbiter with a large payload shroud.

The current shuttle design is inherently dangerous because the orbiter is in a vulnerable position, hanging on the side of the tank where it can be damaged by tank debris, and also close to the solid rocket exhaust where it can be damaged by an SRB failure. It was designed this way because they wanted to be able to re-use the main engines (packaging them with the orbiter) yet throw away the fuel tank. Unfortunately they were not able to achieve enough reliability to make this configuration work.

Griffin put it well when he called the shuttle "operationally fragile". Any serious malfunction shuts down a large part of our space activities for two years, and smaller malfunctions cause serious delays.

[Gomanson]

I agree with you, Steve, about the chunk of foam. It's good NASA is cautious, but I think they are verging on paranoia. I think that paranoia is the reason Hubble is gonna plop down. There have been manned service missions to Hubble before, but now suddenly with no changed factors it's too dangerous? This isn't easy- space travel. Casualties are inevitable. The astronauts know it, the engineers and mission planners know it, and I think the American public knows it. The only people who don't realize this are the beaurocrats who funnel NASAs cash. And unfortunately, they have the final say in what we do or don't try in space.

Regardless, hurry for Discovery! I've been so busy with wedding preparations that I haven't had much time to follow the mission, but it's sure nice to know there's seven extra people looking back at me when I see the ISS zoom by at night