Anyone going to watch the Discovery shuttle landing?

[vshah]

is that an escort in the background? what was that aircraft?

 

[corwin]

Quick grab of photos from my camera, will have to clean up and upload more after work. So glad I went to see this.

<-Really jealous right now

Awesome pics though:thumbsup:

 

[ichy]

Damn you Obama. Now we have to depend on the Russians to resupply the ISS while we wait for NASA to figger out a new way into space? The hull integrities of all the Space Shuttles were immaculate from what I've read. Why not milk them for another 10 years? Seems a shame to mothball them.

*sigh*

Obama has nothing to do with this. The decision to end the shuttle program was made during the Bush administration and by the time Obama took office it was too late to undo that decision.

What people don't seem to understand is that there was a huge network of highly specialized contractors who produced all kinds of unique parts and services for the shuttle and many of them closed down years before the final flight. You can't just shut a supply chain like that down and expect to restart it. Wayne Hale (former shuttle program manager) had a blog entry about this a while back. If I remember correctly the decision to ground the shuttle was a done deal by 2006 or so.

Edit:

http://wiki.nasa.gov/cm/blog/waynehalesblog/posts/post_1219932905350.html

Starting four years ago, the shuttle program in its various projects made "lifetime buys". That is, we bought enough piece parts to fly all the flights on the manifest plus a prudent margin of reserves. Then we started sending out termination letters. About two years ago, we terminated 95% of the vendors for parts for the external tank project, for example. Smaller, but still significant, percentages of vendors for SSME, Orbiter, and RSRB have also been terminated.

A lot of things that go into the shuttle build up are specialty items. Electronics parts that nobody makes any more (1970's vintage stuff). Hey, if it works, why invest money in certifying new parts? Certifying new ones would be even more costly! Specialty alloys to meet the extraordinary demands of space flight, parts that are made by Mom and Pop shops mostly in the LA basin are norm rather than the exception. You might think that simple things like bolts and screws, wire, filters, and gaskets could be bought off the shelf some where, but that thinking would merely prove how little you know about the shuttle. The huge majority of supplies, consumable items, maintenance items, they are all specially made with unique and stringent processes and standards.

 

[ichy]

is that an escort in the background? what was that aircraft?

Probably a T-38. NASA uses them for astronaut training and chase plane duty.

 

[Triumph]

Probably a T-38. NASA uses them for astronaut training and chase plane duty.

That is what all the NASA nerds around me were saying. There were at least 2 of them, one landed after the first flyby and another came through with it the second time around.

 

[sigurros81]

I like watching Deadliest Catch on Discovery.

 

[ichy]

That is what all the NASA nerds around me were saying. There were at least 2 of them, one landed after the first flyby and another came through with it the second time around.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/flyout/t38flyout.html

 

[sixone]

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/flyout/t38flyout.html

Cool. We haven't had T38s here for a long time.

Great pics, thanks for posting 'em!

 

[Triumph]

Video of the landing that my sister recorded:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/ub3kI4579qU

 

[Ns1]

awesome pics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle_Carrier_Aircraft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate-Demate_Device

The two aircraft were functionally identical, although N911NA has five upper-deck windows on each side, while N905NA has only two. The rear mounting points on both aircraft were labeled with similar tongue-in-cheek instructions to "Attach Orbiter Here" or "Place Orbiter Here", clarified by the precautionary note "Black Side Down".[7][8] Both were based at the Dryden Flight Research Center within Edwards Air Force Base in California.

:biggrin:

 

[Triumph]

i gotta say though, they spent all that money to design and build the mate/demate device, and at dulles, they're unloading it with cranes. couldn't they have just done that all along!?

 

[Bulk Beef]

Missed out on Discovery, but I saw Enterprise when they flew her in to Dulles in the 80s. They were flying a lazy zigzag over the beltway and it flew right over my parents' house. Complete surprise, and pretty cool.

 

[vshah]

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/flyout/t38flyout.html

Any footage of early shuttle landings includes more than a glimpse of a few T-38s as they followed the shuttle down to a runway. From their vantage points around the shuttle, the chase pilots could radio the shuttle crews about the condition of the spacecraft and what to expect in the approach. They also could mirror the shuttle all the way through its approach on a glide path that is seven times steeper than an airliner's.

coooool

 

[vshah]

i didn't cry through that 17 video youtube retardation, but this brings a tear to my eye.

 

[ichy]

i gotta say though, they spent all that money to design and build the mate/demate device, and at dulles, they're unloading it with cranes. couldn't they have just done that all along!?

I suspect part of the reason they can get away with using cranes is that the shuttle is empty and will never fly again, so they don't have to be as delicate with it.

 

[ichy]

coooool

The best part of being an astronaut (aside from flying into space) is that NASA lets them use their T-38 fleet sort of as their own toys. I wish I had a job that required me to fly at least 15 hours per month in one of those!