In Florida July 2-4?

[Edd]

Anything going on (flyins)? Any recomendations for lunch in the Key's? I'll be in Orlando July 2-4.

[Becca]

Recommendation: Stay 4 more days and see last Space Shuttle launch ever.

[fantom]

Quote: Becca

Recommendation: Stay 4 more days and see last Space Shuttle launch ever.

[fantom]

The weather isn’t cutting NASA any breaks, not even for the last space shuttle launch.

Forecasters say there’s a 70 percent chance that rain or thunderstorms will prevent Atlantis from flying this Friday. The weather forecast improves slightly over the weekend, so we may not be impacted on Saturday for our FL luncheon fly-in.

This will be the 135th and final mission of NASA’s 30-year shuttle program. Four astronauts will ride Atlantis one last time on a supply run to the International Space Station, after which we must rely on the Russians for a lift, and pay very big bucks to them.

Up to a million people are expected to jam Cape Canaveral for this historic liftoff. Should be crowded in the air also, so ATC will have their hands full. Launch time is planned for 11:26 a.m. weather and shuttle willing. The launch of the final manned space shuttle from NASA, whenever it happens, will mark the sad end of an era.

[fantom]

Just in case anyone needs a graphic of the restrictions:

[Becca]

Quote: fantom

The weather isn’t cutting NASA any breaks, not even for the last space shuttle launch.

Forecasters say there’s a 70 percent chance that rain or thunderstorms will prevent Atlantis from flying this Friday. The weather forecast improves slightly over the weekend, so we may not be impacted on Saturday for our FL luncheon fly-in.

This will be the 135th and final mission of NASA’s 30-year shuttle program. Four astronauts will ride Atlantis one last time on a supply run to the International Space Station, after which we must rely on the Russians for a lift, and pay very big bucks to them.

Up to a million people are expected to jam Cape Canaveral for this historic liftoff. Should be crowded in the air also, so ATC will have their hands full. Launch time is planned for 11:26 a.m. weather and shuttle willing. The launch of the final manned space shuttle from NASA, whenever it happens, will mark the sad end of an era.

[Becca]

Also, for another bit of space tourism, my understanding is when there isn't a Shuttle on the pad, that Patrick Tower can give you permission for a low approach to the SLF (shuttle runway).  I had the opportunity to do it once many many years ago (don't know if they allow it anymore in the post-9/11 world).  Really cool.

[flyboy0681]

While we are on the subject of the Shuttle, let me get on my soap box for just a minute. When I was in my early 20's the shuttle first flew and as an aviator I was very excited about it. But as time went on, I saw the broken promises and my enthusiasm for the program when I was in my late 40's turned to anger. Here's a very short list of what NASA told Congress and the American people when the program was launched all those years ago:

1. Cost per pound of payload would roughly be $100. The reality is that depending on the orbit, the cost per pound is between $5k and $20k.

2. Adjusted for inflation, the program cost more than twice what it was projected to be by the mid 90's. Surprise surprise.

3. NASA projected 50 launches a year. The reality is the largest number of launches in one particular year was a paltry 9.

4. NASA said new metals and medications that could only be manufactured in weightlessness would become the norm.     I'm still waiting for at least one of these products. Then again, we did get to see a spider spin a web in zero G's.

5. The shuttle would usher in a low cost, safe space transportation system. With only a few vehicles in the fleet and two catastrophes, it turned out to be a very dangerous form of transportation.

6. Until the space station came along, the shuttle really had no place to go.

7. The amount of maintenance required post flight landed up being more expensive than any one human could ever have imagined.

 

I'm sure I will get rebuttals and corrections to my numbers, but I think you get the idea of what I'm trying to say.

 

 

[fantom]

Thanks for the good infor Becca. Those low approach Shuttle tours were very cool but are a thing of the past since 9/11.

Don't worry about me, I've seen a bunch of launches, from the air, the ground, and even one from the VIP area. ATC does an excellent job of keeping us stacked and at a legal distance. They even give us launch time updates.

As for Mike (flyboy)....I'm beginning to worry about him ;-)

 

[flyboy0681]

Quote: fantom

As for Mike (flyboy)....I'm beginning to worry about him ;-)

[Becca]

Yep, flyboy, we all miss the future we were promised. What's sad is I don't think its due to lack of technical know how, I think its due to lack of political will, and changing political will.  Do you know how many new manned space missions have been proposed, had billions of dollars spent, and then canceled in the last two decades?  X-33, SLI, OSP, X-38, Constellation.. probably a few others.  If you had simply taken all that money and committed to any one of them, no matter how technologically flawed, rather than NASA policy being blown about with the wims of each administration and Congress, we'd be a lot further than we are now.

A few factors to consider, the cost per pound depends on how you ammoritize the fixed cost - more flights = lower cost per pound.  I don't think $50-100/lb were ever in the picture for the space shuttle, but $1000/pound could've happened.  There were supposed to be a variety of commercial and DoD payloads flying on the shuttle, but they all went to less life-risking expendable vehicles after Challenger.   Maybe it was hubrious to design a vehicle that combined crew and cargo on one ship.  Also, little known fact, the crossrange capability of the space shuttle (and therefore the aerodynamic shape and therefor the thermal protection design, etc.) was designed to meet a DoD mission requirement that never ended up flying.  Maybe the Shuttle tried to be too much for too many customers. The Shuttle was also before its time, it was supposed to be both a Shuttle and Station, without a Station, the Shuttle didn't have a complete mission for the first two decades of its life.  Of course, now national space policy is leading us down the same route building us a deep space capsule but no lander or service module stage that can get us out there and a launch system that I think will be crippled from the start.  

Its probably worth marveling in some of the things Shuttle did that were NEVER expected early on in the program - the long, complex, and amazing spacewalks, for instance.  EVA was envisioned as an occasional emergency event when the Shuttle program was conceived, now multiple EVAs are the norm each mission which enabled us to do very complex space repair and construction tasks.  As for the science research you mention, it really takes a space station, and only in the last couple of years has the ISS been staffed with enough astronauts to do serious research, and I am hoping we'll see big gains there in the future.

Here's some great photos of the Shuttle's history: http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/07/the-history-of-the-space-shuttle/100097/

 

[flyboy0681]

My sentiments exactly Becca. And what a great way to put it, "we all miss the future we were promised".

The pictures from the The Atlantic are great, most of them I've never seen before.

Maybe somebody could answer this question. It takes several million dollars to train the pilots of the shuttle yet they only fly a few missions. That's the equivalent of American Airlines putting a guy through training only to keep them on staff for five years. What's the reason for this?

At any rate, if the rain down here doesn't let up, there won't be a launch tomorrow.

[fantom]

Oh, good, it isn't NASA you find fault with flyboy, but the grossly overreaching, morally corrupt, incompetent politicians we have in Washington. They do have an unblemished record for screwing up everything they get involved with. BTW, it's a lot more than several million bucks to train any astronaut (not just pilots), they stay in the program for many years, are somewhat older than your average military jock, and we needed lots of them for the program that never got extended. Keep your scorecard for the broken campaign promises and metrics for the massive spending programs of the past few years. These lies will dwarf anything you can say about NASA.

BTW, the mission has not be scrubbed yet, as the weather forecast remains unchanged for tomorrow's launch with still only a 30 percent chance for acceptable conditions. Here's the description from the meteorologists:

"Moisture continues to increase over Kennedy Space Center as a trough of low pressure moves in from the south-southeast. An upper-level low in the Gulf of Mexico is also affecting clouds associated with convection in from the southwest. Scattered showers are prevalent over the area this morning, and the saturated atmosphere will continue to breed showers and thunderstorms for the next several days with the most activity today and launch day," forecasters say.

"Our primary concerns for launch are showers and thunderstorms within 20 nautical miles of the Shuttle Landing Facility, flight through precipitation, and cumulus clouds."

The specifics call for scattered low- clouds, broken decks in the mid high levels, showers and thunderstorms in the vicinity, good visibility, south-southwesterly winds of 10 peaking to 15 knots and a temperature of 80 degrees.

If Atlantis' launch slips to Saturday for some reason, the odds of acceptable weather increase slightly to 40 percent and then improve to 60 percent on Sunday. "Still, cumulus clouds and showers are concerns for each launch window through the weekend."

[flyboy0681]

Quote: fantom

Oh, good, it isn't NASA you find fault with flyboy, but the grossly overreaching, morally corrupt, incompetent politicians we have in Washington.

[flyboy0681]

I just had a minute to look up Shuttle pilots and the record is held by James Wetherbee. He flew the shuttle a whopping 6 times.

Again, this just doesn't make sense to me. Why not train a handful of people who will fly the vehicles for 15 to 20 years instead of paying millions for training pilots who fly less than six missions during their career?

[Becca]

6 missions can be a 15-20 year career at NASA.  Selection process for pilots:  1. Become a military test pilot - requires an engineering degree plus 8-12 years (minimum of military experience).   Most have more before making it to NASA.  2.  Get selected as an astronaut by NASA (most astronauts apply multiple times, and they only do selections every 2-4 years)  3.  Do nearly 2 year basic astronaut training to be eligible for your first mission assignment.  4.  Do minimum 1 year mission specific training (longer if your mission slips at all or happen to be on the flipside of a long grounding, like after Challenger or Columbia).  5.  Land, await reassignment (hopefully relatively quickly - by quickly, you will get assigned to a mission that is at least over a year away because of training lengths), go back to step 4. 

For a pilot career flow, you generally work 2 flights as a PLT before getting your first CDR slot. As you can see from this, working 3 missions can put you at 10 years, easily.  Jim Wetherbee, a quick look at his bio shows, was selected as an astronaut in 1984 and didn't fly his first flight until 1990!  His last flight was in 2002.  It took him almost 20 years to get 6 mission assignments because of the length of the mission specific training.  These guys aren't coming, taking the training and leaving a couple years later.

Also, consider the jobs astronauts do when they leave .  Most of them don't just retire to Florida, they become NASA, military and industry leaders (and the occasional SWA pilot).  Moving up in their careers is hardly abandonning their training.

[fantom]

You ever wonder why Columbus needed three ships, when one could have done the job?  flyboy. Please visit the Cape before it's too late, in order to get a better appreciation for the program.

Ten years ago there were about 150 American astronauts, today about 60. Since the inception of Space travel just over 500 humans have gone into space, and ~ 350 of them were aboard the Shuttle. Given initial training, mission specific training, multi reason drop out potential, after mission physical recovery time, extensive debriefing, and a multitude of additional duties, their numbers are not excessive at all.

WX this morning in SoFL was poor, marginal VFR at best. Broken decks at 2, 2.5 and 3 thousand feet, with lots of scattered clouds above that. Wind out of the south at over 20 knows down low, patchy rain showers, and just plain gloomy. Holding abound ODDEL on V-441. Not for inexperienced pilots, and photo opportunities were minimal. Then, low and behold, just after a last minute delay, they sky lights up and the final launch goes off through a hole. I suspect someone may have stretched WX launch parameters.

Nothing will match being in the VIP area for STS-8 to see, feel, and smell Challenger slip the surly bonds of earth, at about 2:30 AM over 25 years ago, during the first night launch ever. Now we"ll hitch rides with the Russians, and watch the Chinese put a man on the moon in about ten years. Their time has come, and ours is about over, I fear.

[flyboy0681]

I'm not saying there isn't a need for reserves. If the airlines didn't have reserves ready to take a flight at the spur of the moment they would be out of business within a day or two.

It just seems odd to put the shuttle pilots through all that training and keeping them on the roles for two decades only for them to fly a couple of times.

Nice picture, needless to say I didn't see anything from down here.

And correct observation about the Chinese. Wonder if instead of Tang they will take tubes of Ginseng. But wait, isn't Tang a Chinese name?

 

[flyboy0681]

As the Shuttle era comes to a close, I neatly folded a copy of my local newspaper, which was adorned with the headline and picture of the last shuttle liftoff, and placed it right on top of my April 13, 1981 copy of the New York Daily News, whose front page was adorned with liftoff of the first shuttle.

[carusoam]

Flyboy,

 

I was a freshman in high school for the first lift-off.  We gathered around a "big" tv in history class to watch the broadcast.

 

The last one, I watched on my iPad via NASA tv during work hours...

 

We have come a long way...

 

Best regards,

-a-

[fantom]

http://360vr.com/2011/06/22-discovery-flight-deck-opf_6236/index.html What, no Garmin GTN 750? ;-)

[flyboy0681]

Easy, because the shuttle's technology is generations behind civil aviation.

[fantom]

Doubt that, but it does burn a bit more fuel.....

[fantom]

Atlantis landed, for the last time, this morning just before dawn, and now the long-term future for American space exploration is in question. The amazing talent that is/was NASA will scatter in the wind, and that type of resource will take several decades to reassemble and develop, and then only AFTER the commitment is made to do it.

NASA's five space shuttles launched, saved and revitalized the Hubble Space Telescope; launched 180 satellites and other spacecraft from it's bay that ease our communications, make possible our GPS navigation, and keep us safe from attack; built the space station, the world's largest orbiting structure; opened the final frontier to women, minorities, and schoolteachers, and a host of other projects. The five shuttles carried 355 people, from 16 countries, into space. Two shuttles - Challenger and Columbia - were destroyed, one at launch, the other during the ride home. Fourteen lives were lost. About the same risk factor as a fighter combat tour of Vietnam, an astronaut once told me, and like any good fighter pilot, the shuttle program persevered and came back to fly again.

Private industry says they can fly people to the space station within three years of getting the all-clear from NASA. Station managers expect it to be more like five years. As a skeptic, I say it could be 10 years before Americans are launched again from U.S. soil, and that I won't live to see Americans on the Moon again, or on Mars.

.....as America abdicates world leadership.

[flyboy0681]

As far as future space travel is concerned, all I can say is -  how's your Mandarin?