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by SkyGuy from Fairfax, VA

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Discovery is at the Pad
May 12, 2008 | 12:54 PM
Category: Weather
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Hey Fellow Fox 5'ers!

Space Shuttle Discovery is on the pad at Kennedy Space Center. STS-124 is scheduled for liftoff at 5:01 PM EDT, May 31st. As described by NASA's mission overview release:

"Space shuttle Discovery’s upcoming STS-124 mission is the second of three flights that will launch components to complete the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo laboratory. The shuttle crew will install Kibo’s large Japanese Pressurized Module,or JPM, and its remote manipulator system, or RMS. The RMS consists of two robotic arms that support operations outside of Kibo. The lab's logistics module, which was installed in a temporary location during STS-123 in March, will be attached to the new lab. Discovery's 14-day flight carries the heaviest payload to the station and will include three spacewalks. The shuttle also will deliver a new crew member and bring back another one after a three-month mission."

There are only 10 shuttles flights left after STS 124 and the planned retirement of Atlantis, Endeavour and Discovery. Senator and Astronaut John Glenn recently spoke out against the planned retirement of the shuttle fleet by 2010 as he thinks it is not in the best interests of the US to rely on Russian spacecraft for access to space - http://www.space.com/news/ft-080507-glenn-nasa.html>

9 of the remaining flights will go to the ISS and the other flight is to service the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), now set for August.

NASA's new spacecraft, Orion, will not fly until 2015 which leaves a 5 year gap in America's access to space using national assets.

SkyGuy
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Member Comments Total Comments: 9
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Mountaineerfan read my blog view my photos
May 13, 2008 | 2:29 AM

Only ten more missions,huh?Can't say I'm sorry to see it go.While I'm a hardcore lover of both air and spacecraft and so will always appreciate it to a certain degree,I also know,as a hardcore lover of both air and spacecraft,how inefficient it is.
The shuttle was built in a time of lagging support for space exploration and was given wings for no other real purpose than to make it salable to the public in order to gain funding approval.
Thank goodness we're going back to the much cheaper,more efficient and much,much safer capsule based ride.
SkyGuy read my blog view my photos
May 13, 2008 | 3:55 AM

Hey Mountaineerfan,

The current STS (Space Transportation System) that followed after we gave up the Moon is a far cry from what it had been envisioned to be. Budget cuts more than anything else gave us the system we have today.

If JFK had not been murdered - where would we be today? How would the history of the Vietnam conflict and the US Space Program have been written? We'll never know.

What if Nixon and the Congress had kept Apollo alive and we had had Apollos 18, 19 and 20? Where would we be now if Apollo had been allowed to go further?

What if, what if. Humanity has been in manned Low Earth Orbit since late Dec. 1972. It's time to GO SOMEPLACE. Thankfully our space probes have been everywhere in the solar system - now it is time for US to go.

Come on Congress....give NASA the funds it needs to get us to the MOON earlier than 2020....FLY Orion ASAP. Don't let the US be TOTALLY dependent on foreign govts to get us into space. Don't let US space history once again be written by budget cuts instead of space flights.

SkyGuy
bootsykowan read my blog view my photos
May 13, 2008 | 11:25 AM

Does this mean that Japan, Russia and China, may be North Korea, will form a sort of "space axis". I'm just throwing this out for perspective limits. In the meantime, we're gonna focus on the moon, I hope. Can't we put satellites around the moon? Like I said, just brain-storming, word associations. Are we going into space without allies? Isn't the moon "access to space"? When John Robinson Pierce conceived of Satellite Communications there wasn't enough power knowledge to think of asynchronous satellites. It happened right after his experimental International Communications - asynchronous satellites.

Hmm, the moon is a satellite all by itself. So much to grasp about how to budget for space ventures. Should Russia determine our budget? I don't even know if Russia is a democracy.
bootsykowan read my blog view my photos
May 13, 2008 | 11:27 AM

correction: J.R. Pierce - geosynchronous experiment.
SkyGuy read my blog view my photos
May 13, 2008 | 11:34 AM

lots of interesting points bootsykowan. To me (and John Glenn) it just does not make sense to leave the US without its' own manned access to space capability. Congress could earmark more $$ to NASA to get Orion ready sooner - cut the gap by several years.

SkyGuy
bootsykowan read my blog view my photos
May 13, 2008 | 12:04 PM

Actually, it was at David Taylor Model Basin that I got interested in the space shuttle. Somehow someone gave me photos in the late 1960's of large models. When I moved over to COMSAT, I was already despairing we'd ever get a space shuttle. So I posted these photos near my desk. Suddenly, it started happening. So I know what you mean about time is of the essence. I think the Iraq war has distorted the evolution of our country's civilization. I think the budget process is everything.
SkyGuy read my blog view my photos
May 13, 2008 | 1:01 PM

In a famous scene from the movie "The Right Stuff", a reporter tells several of the Mercury Astronauts to be and present military test pilots at Poncho's:
"You know what makes your airplanes go up in the air?"
"Hell, the aerodynamics alone would take days to explain"
"Funding. That's what makes you go. No bucks, no Buck Rogers."
Mountaineerfan read my blog view my photos
May 13, 2008 | 5:41 PM

" No bucks, no Buck Rogers."

One of my all time fave movie lines.Did you spot the real Chuck Yeager in that movie?Also,Skyguy,do you know the real story of Pancho Barnes?Know what The Happy Bottom Riding Club really was?Ever see the movie "Pancho Barnes" with Valerie Bert and Ernie....uh...I mean Valerie Bertinelli?
There is a documentry being made about her but it's money short.Until recently a documentry was nearly impossible due to most everything about her being lost in the HBRC fire in `53.Just recently has some new stuff emerged and was presented to a crew doing a doc on Edwards AFB by a fellow named Dr. D'Elia.Hopefully it will be ready before too long.
SkyGuy read my blog view my photos
May 13, 2008 | 6:54 PM

I have a connection with that movie - love it AND the music. Pancho was quite a legend at EAFB...would LOVE to see anything about her and the era.

Chuck Y. was the guy behind the bar asking the two NASA guys if they wanted whiskey and wearing the great hat.

Here's to the MOON Mounatineerfan!
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SkyGuy

Hi, my name is Greg Redfern and you may have seen me on Fox 5 or heard me on WTOP and Washington Post Radio talking about space and astronomy. I write a weekly astronomy column for WTOP News called "What's Up: The Space Place" and I am a NASA-Jet Propulsion Lab Solar System Ambassador. Be sure to visit Astrocast.tv for the latest webcast episode. Space related stuff is my passion. If you have any space or astronomy related questions please let me know.

Member Since: 6/11/2007


 

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