Atlantis

[Burlyman]

Is it just the Atlantis that's being retired or is it the entire space shuttle program? What will NASA replace it with if it's the program?

[Top Gun]

The whole program; this is the final Shuttle flight. NASA is working on a modern take on the capsule system for deep-space exploration, and a few private companies will be taking over passenger/cargo deliveries to the ISS as soon as their vehicles are ready, which should hopefully be in the next few years. Until then, US astronauts will travel via Russian Soyuz capsules.

[flip]

Must resist............

[CDN_Merlin]

Burlyman, do you not read the news AT ALL? It's been in the news for the last year that the Shuttle program is done. This is the last flight.

[Isaac]

"Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't..."

[fliptw]

shuttle retirement was known since the fleet went back into service after Columbia.

[Tunnelcat]

We really need a newer, more robust spacecraft. The shuttle was old and fell apart or broke by just looking at it. What's the use of an expensive spacecraft that a piece of foam can destroy. It was a money pit that needed to retire. But I think we still need to focus on space travel, and no one has any money or backup plans for NASA at the moment. Sad.

[Burlyman]

Burlyman, do you not read the news AT ALL? It's been in the news for the last year that the Shuttle program is done. This is the last flight.

Don't start up with me. -.-

[snoopy]

Yep. Obama axed Orion

[Isaac]

How many rockets would a company have to send up to make space mining companies profitable?

That would be hard to calculate since you'd have to figure out how much and of what they'd have to bring back to the market. I'd read that article.

Imagine the return on investment? It'd be like 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000001

[Sirius]

Might be a few too many zeroes there, but I would wager that there is nothing that can be found on those asteroids and not Earth that is yet of sufficient value to justify anywhere near the expense. If there were, it'd happen. I expect that to be a few years (okay, decades) off though.

[Spidey]

We really need a newer, more robust spacecraft. The shuttle was old and fell apart or broke by just looking at it. What's the use of an expensive spacecraft that a piece of foam can destroy.

LOL, did you see the experiments done shooting the “foam” at the shuttle craft wing?

Yea, everyone is saying the same thing…until they did the experiment.

[flip]

I remember them bringing a piece of that foam to school. The instructor took a blow torch and held it to it for about 3 minutes then held it out for me and it was cool to the touch. Pretty neat material there. The atmosphere was designed so that anything coming in to steep would burn up and anything coming in 2 shallow would bounce. A forcefield I don't imagine there are too many materials that could accomplish that.

[Tunnelcat]

We really need a newer, more robust spacecraft. The shuttle was old and fell apart or broke by just looking at it. What's the use of an expensive spacecraft that a piece of foam can destroy.

LOL, did you see the experiments done shooting the “foam” at the shuttle craft wing?

Yea, everyone is saying the same thing…until they did the experiment.

Punched right through. Watch what happened at the end of this video showing NASA's foam impact test on an actual wing panel. SMACK! Oooooooooooooooh!

I think we need to develop some kind of force field technology for space travel. Ships will be encountering far more solid debris than foam in space LOL!

[snoopy]

You know how you hear about a tornado shooting blades of wheat through telephone poles? Tornado wind speeds are slow relative speeds involved in space travel.

Tunnel, you're right, the only time that we'll be close to being able to protect space vehicles from impact damage is when we have some non-physical protection system.

[Sirius]

You can generally deal with it with speeds in the low double-digit kilometres per second range - with sufficiently fancy "armor" - but I would agree that once you're travelling significant proportions of the speed of light that probably isn't going to happen.

[CDN_Merlin]

Going around the earth at 25,000 MPH no matter what you hit it will damage the ship.

[Spidey]

Yea…I heard some bad things about “flecks of paint”.

[Gekko71]

...I would wager that there is nothing that can be found on those asteroids and not Earth that is yet of sufficient value to justify anywhere near the expense... .

...Oh I wouldn't be too sure about that.

[Isaac]

^Wow.

Imagine china taking the lead on space mining operations... At least someone would be doing it.

[Sirius]

...Oh I wouldn't be too sure about that.

Point taken - the moon is closer than most asteroids, though, and quite a bit easier to mine if you felt so inclined. That wouldn't seem so far off at all - if, of course, fusion technology become common enough to need it and Helium-3 was a fuel of choice.

[Thenior]

^Wow.

Imagine china taking the lead on space mining operations... At least someone would be doing it.

Probably more like space slavery mining operations...

[Sirius]

Maybe Ultor is a Chinese company.

Though I don't want to pick on them too much, they are improving gradually.

[Burlyman]

Force shields? That sounds... difficult. -.-

That would require a knowledge of anti-gravity, something that the mainstream asserts to be nonexistent. Until then, NASA needs to watch out for those foam balls. Got descent on the brain? ^_~

[Avder]

I dont see asteroid mining to be very profitable until we start running real short of some basic materials.

Now, the gas giants on the other hand...if we can find a way to mine those suckers for hydrocarbons...hooo boy.

[Tunnelcat]

VESTA