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Subscribe to RSSToday I'm following the final flight of the shuttle Discovery.
For updates, check our running story about the Discovery's final flight on msnbc.com, watch NASA's live TV coverage above, and please do follow me on Twitter throughout the day. I'm happy to take your questions. To get my attention, just send your question or comment to @b0yle, or use the hashtag #msnbcspace.
The most flown spacecraft in history, Discovery is heading from its old home base at NASA's Kennedy Space Center to its new home base at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia.
First stop was Dulles International Airport, where the shuttle and its carrier plane touched down this morning. Over the next day or so, Discovery will be lifted off the jet and brought over to the adjacent Udvar-Hazy Center for display on Thursday alongside the prototype shuttle Enterprise, which has been at the museum since 1985. Next week, Enterprise will be flown from Dulles to New York, where it will go on exhibit at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.
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It's a sad day, we as a society, a Nation, a people, have enjoy so many off shoots of the space industry, that if their benefits to us were to be removed today, we would be lost. Computers, cell phones, advances in medicines, the list is endless, so many people do not realize that most of the advances we have made in a wide field of technology and science would not have occurred if it weren't for the catalysis of the space program. And to think, it only took 12 years of the Bush agenda of greed and deceit, continued by Obama, to do it all in! The glory days of the United States are over, until those who were responsible for the false flag operation of 911 and those who continue to perpetuate the lies, as accessories, after the fact, until these people are round up and brought to justice, the Nation, the World, will remain on the threshold of the abyss.
"...would not have occurred if it weren't for the catalysis of the space program."
You speak as if something has ended. Only the Shuttle program has ended. Not 'the space program' (whatever that exactly is, there's no line item in the budget by that name), not human space flight, not US human space flight (we've been between spacecraft before, and there are multiple designs being built...not nice artist's conceptions, but metal and composites being cut), just the Shuttle.
And if all our 'glory' was tied up in just that one series of machines, something really is wrong with us...
We used to build great things in the USA. Now they are in museums.
As all great things should be, when they've been superseded and replaced by something else.
We used to manufacture great things in the USA. Now they are in museums. We need to get our country back in gear - building great things and doing great things !!
See above. Not just what I said to you, but Eye ON Citrus as well.
Nothing stays the same Some things should not. But don't assume that change = decline. You've become too comfortable with the Shuttle symbolizing US manned space flight, as have many people who don't really know anything else first hand. I'm old enough to remember them all, and I never expected to lock in on one system forever, and something will eventually augment and follow commercial crew capsules, too ...
What an amazing tool ....
And a great cargo carrier of sorts ....
As the incredible space station orbits this planet because of this tool ....
Space exploration and advances in space travel and its studies are far from over ....
The time has come for the next generation of space equipment for space travel and work ....
Richard Branson's renditions of space vehicles are just what we could imagine as the next ideal means to transport people and some cargo into space ....
These are surely amazing times for all of us ....
So it's not good bye to Discovery ....
But thanks ....
And thank you Alan Boyle once again ....
The same lowbrow president that canceled the program waves it in our face with a Washington DC fly-over. The limited thinker certainly has some gall.
"The same lowbrow president that canceled the program..."
(sigh)
"The shuttle's chief purpose over the next several years will be to help finish assembly of the International Space Station. In 2010, the space shuttle, after nearly 30 years of duty, will be retired from service."
— President George W. Bush
January 14, 2004
See the entire text here:
See and follow along in this video (unfortunately, somewhat edited from the original speech) here:
The decision was made, long before Obama, the closing down of the supply chain was well underway by his time. We had plenty of time to decide what to do next and set it into motion, but some people just couldn't believe the Shuttle was ending, until it happened. But it was going to happen, whether Obama or McCain was in the driver's seat at the time.
Fortunately, the next steps are finally in motion...assuming Congress doesn't screw with Commercial Crew in order to try to save Orion (which I can live with), and SLS. (which I can't. Delta IV is adequate for Orion to LEO. If you want to go farther, orbital refueling, or docking to a separately launched transfer stage...something demonstrated several times in the Gemini program, setting altitude records not broken until Apollo 8.)
(hmmm...It appears I'm still not allowed to post URLs, but presumably you get the picture...)
I wish that people would not equate the end of the space shuttle with the end of space exploration. We currently have spacecraft orbiting or on their way to just about every major object in the solar system except for Uranus and Neptune. We have an amazing rover on Mars and an even more amazing one on its way. We have one of the most important telescopes in history orbiting the Earth and its follow-up under construction. Dozens of other missions are teaching us more about our own planet every day. Over the last thirty years, manned space flight has accomplished very little by comparison even though it was far more expensive.
To Dutra: So you believe McCain would have continued using the old and obselete and worn out shuttles? Just one more disaster with a shuttle would have quenched this nation's space exploration for decades. The magnificent shuttles lasted far longer than they were designed to last.
To ToSeek: I'm 100% in favor of more manned space exploration because that alone is the most noble act this nation in the new century could set out to do. It's in mankind's genes to explore and not only with remote controlled machines.
To Dutra: So you believe McCain would have continued using the old and obsolete and worn out shuttles? Just one more disaster with a shuttle would have quenched this nation's space exploration for decades. The magnificent shuttles lasted far longer than they were designed to last.
To ToSeek: I'm 100% in favor of more manned space exploration because that alone is the most noble act this nation in the new century could set out to do. It's in mankind's genes to explore and not only with remote controlled machines.