Space shuttle Discovery launches on final voyage

Source: AP

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Space shuttle Discovery has blasted off on its final voyage. Six astronauts are on board the world's most traveled spaceship. They're headed for the International Space Station after a four-month delay for fuel tank repairs.

This is Discovery's 39th and final mission. It's the first of the three space shuttles to be retired this year. No other spacecraft has been launched more times.

Tens of thousands witnessed history in the making from the Florida launch site. Countless more watched from surrounding towns. Roads leading into Kennedy Space Center were jammed.

Discovery should reach the space station Saturday. It will deliver a compartment full of supplies as well as the first humanoid robot to fly in space.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110224/ap_on_sc/us_space_shuttle

I was watching the camera shot from the external tank as it ascended and it looked to me like some tiles fell off...hopefully they weren't and it was something else....

They could leave the shuttle tied to the space station and ride home in a capsule...

Eventually you could attach ion engines to the whole mess and drag it out into a permanent orbit as a space museum.

:shrug:

onehandle

It was an impresive takeoff.. As allways;).. But it is also a sad liftoff, as it is one of the last, if not the last shuttle ever been used to put man in space. And then, when Discovery is landing a whole era is over, a era who started in 1982, and now, is on the end in 2011... In most of my life, the space shuttle have been there and now the shuttle wil be a piece of museum metal soon.. How sad.. Oh well, the shuttles have had a fine time, given humans a wiew of the space as we never have been able to make it before.. I just hope, that "we" as humans can manage to build another "space shuttle", using new technology, and advanced allouis, to make it better, safer and more capable to missions than the old shuttle.. A shuttle made for the 21 century.. The SHuttle technology is old, 1970s tech.. And I guess a space shuttle NG would posible be usable in the future.. Even tho I doubt that NASA for the fortcoming future wil be able to get the money to in fact build anything near what a chuttle NG would be... TH US federal State are economical in trouble, and I doubt they have the money to spend of a new shuttle program, even tho a new shuttle program would mean a lot of works..

Diclotican

as we are doing.

Oh, well, nothing lasts forever. It would be nice to think any future Americans might have any curiosity at all about the world, though.

I'm all for it.

The last 20 years have seen NASA become a hide-bound bureaucracy living on past technological glories.

The privatization of EVERYTHING! SO advantageous - especially for a capitalist bastion that's starving for the growth it needs to survive.

How long before states incorporate a chip in your license plate that register3s with every road your car traverses. Then you'll get a monthly statement from the owners of the different roads you use. Fully automatic toll roads. AND YOU WON'T HAVE TO PAY TAXES!!! WOO-HOO!!!! :woohoo::woohoo::woohoo:

Sad

:(

http://www.c-span.org/Events/Shuttle-Discovery-Launches-for-Final-Mission/10737419792-1/

"Discovery making one last reach for the stars."


K & R.

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=24196621

Getting packed for the flight: (time-lapse video). This one gave me a bit of catch in my throat, too
A reminder of what we are capable of when we're not putting all our capital into war and killing; the best of us as a species when we work together in the world on something new or good.

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=24259111

....does this mean the Russians have won the space race now that the rusty Shuttle fleet has been grounded?

....privatize space? I believe we're now suffering from the 'wrong stuff'.

I began working on OV099 - Challenger, in Downey. Then proceeded to help build and test OV103, OV104, and, after the loss of Challenger, the storied OV105 ...

I always wanted to be an astronaut, but the closest I got was chasing down system faults and sitting in the 'CMD/PLT' seat, flipping buttons and saying 'CMD/PLT Switch soandso Up/Down or On/Off, VERIFIED, or Indicator soandso On/Off - VERIFIED' ....

Tis a shame we lost our way with manned space .... Rockwell presented their no fills X-33, but lost to the fancy Lockheed wedge (whose 1/5th model ultimately split open during pressure tests in a Palmdale hangar). MacDac had no chance with their Space Clipper vertical design ....

The selection of the Lockheed space plane doomed American manned space preeminence ....


On the other hand - Elon Musk and Space X are doing quite well with his Falcon program, using the Merlin engines and the Dragon capsule.


In honor of the seven ... and the other seven before them ... and to the three before them: One for me and one for my homies ....