Last Space Shuttle lift off today
 

http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/frown.gif

They should have started designing a new Space Shuttle the moment Columbia was finished being constructed. Instead, we'll have a several year gap while we rely on Soyuz until Constellation is finished.

I understand that this shuttle wasn't supposed to ever be launched again and instead it was just readied as a back up in case the previous shuttle crew needed to be rescued. So if this shuttle gets into trouble who will rescue them?

They will take the soyuz lifeboat attached to the station back down to Earth if something goes wrong and the shuttle is deemed incapable of safe re-entry.

Constellation is cancelled... so nothing on the radar AFAIK...

for the safety, if they get stuck in space, I am sure that between spending extra time on the ISS and with Russian help they would manage to devise a rescue mission.

Not true. There are several American companies building spaceships to bring crew to ISS, the first of which probably will be available by around 2014. The first cargo spaceship will be available this year.

Constellation was a huge boondoggle and we're lucky it was killed.

That's not true, HC. Obama doesn't even want the restructured program. It's a creature of the congress. I hope that the restructured program is killed as soon as possible.

I think that would really suck. There will be no good telescopes from 2015 on if that is the case, I think.

JM

And we will continue to work on it, no matter what happens to these stupid boondoggles.

I watched. Powerful stuff; that is one helluva machine. Made me a bit nostalgic; I was 15 when we landed on the moon.

I remain resentful that society has not fulfilled the promise of The Jetsons.
We were promised flying cars and vacations on the moon.
What we got: Segways and calving glaciers. :facepalm:

We didn't get the Jetsons because the Shuttle was impossibly expensive, which reduced its utility drastically. That's just par for the course with a government program, of course.

What are you, 12?

Promises promises...

And the benefits of NASA are peanuts compared to its cost.

Maybe the Europeans had it right when they gave companies charters to set up shop in foreign lands and the governments profited greatly and had the ability to take over if they wanted too.
I think that there are amazing opportunities in space and that the government giving up so much control releases the potential for amazing discoveries and uses. Hopefully space, will be an avenue that can help us solve our energy problems for instance.