Today was the last launch of the space shuttle. I'm at the beach, so I got to see the teeny-tiny rocket (from where I was) with my own eyes . Was anyone else able to see the shuttle?

Sounds awesome by last, do you imply the space shuttle is not going to be launched anymore, or last as in the most current launching? I hope it's the latter

If you actually saw it, you must've been pretty close to the launch site. How far away were you?

Daytona Beach. And I do really mean the last one that they (The US) are going to launch. From now on, it will be orbiters only. The shuttles cost too much to keep sending them, something like $400 million.

Edit: http://m.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/07/final-space-shuttle-launch/

That is pretty expensive. The current government has lately been killing a *lot* of space-related projects, so while I'm somewhat sad, I'm not that surprised. I wonder if NASA is thinking up alternatives. I guess I could always ask my uncle, he's pretty deep into the workings of NASA.

As in, he works there? Or he knows a lot about it?

Well technically both, but to be clear the former what I meant to say is that he knows a lot about the little known space workings inside of NASA that most other employees don't in many cases, so he might know what's going on.

Ah, very neat! You should share >

Anyone else have any input?

I watched the live feed and saw the fuel tanks separate from Atlantis. That was pretty nifty.

damnit! Why didn't I know about this? That really is sad, but I guess that we can't afford to spend millions with our current economy :/

that is really sad there will be more shuttles, might as well go watch some videos of the launch then

Anyone know why we aren't extending the shuttle program until we have another viable human-ferrying spacecraft? It would save us the embarrassment of having to send our astronauts up on Russian spacecraft.

My guess would be cowardly politicians. Certainly there's no shortage of scientists who don't mind the personal risk inherent in zipping around at insane speeds in a very complex vehicle that was first launched 30 years ago.

That makes for a good reason to retire them, though- they're old and don't age particularly well since the vehicles get continuously reused, plus the much greater complexity of the space-plane design over a comparable (capacity-wise) capsule.

Tari, agreed entirely on the first part of your post. For the second, don't you think that if we're ever going to begin the exploration and colonization of space for real, we're going to need an infinitely cheaper and less wasteful design than single-use rockets that launch a capsule? We're going backwards in terms of space.

I wouldn't say a capsule design is that much more wasteful. It might even have less waste. When you bring less back down (small capsule vs larger spaceplane), it's that much less you have to send up in the first place.

Wikipedia says the Saturn V's payload capacity to LEO (low Earth orbit) was 119 Mg (that's megagrams, not milligrams), while that of the space shuttle is 22.4 Mg, giving the Saturn V about six times the payload capacity. Still looking at Wikipedia, the inflation-adjusted cost for the launch of a Saturn V is about 1.1 billion dollars, while that of a shuttle is about $450 million.

Do the math:
Saturn V: ~9200 dollars per kilogram
Space shuttle: just over 20000 dollars per kilogram

If you're not a fan of discarding a capsule after it's been used, I don't know of any particular reason they couldn't be designed for reuse. It's mostly just a reliability issue, since that little can undergoes some pretty insane conditions during re-entry (especially if you end up having a straight ballistic re-entry).

I think the main limitation keeping us from getting further is a chronic inability to even get things into orbit. Once you have mass in orbit, it's comparatively easy to get it nearly anywhere else. I think there's a good chance we won't see any revolutionary advances in extraterrestrial transportation until someone creates a useful skyhook.

Chemical rockets are amazingly inefficient, but we don't (yet) have any other propulsion methods that work anywhere near as well in an atmosphere (where we expend most of the propellant anyway). Once you're in orbit, a solar sail or ion thruster nets much better efficiency, although they're significantly slower to accelerate. On long-range missions, however, they're still better, since the sheer amount of propellant required for a comparable chemical rocket would be insane.

So the iron thumb of communism is what's now lifting us into space. Can anyone say irony?

Its almost like The Onion read this thread.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/ussr-wins-space-race-as-us-shuts-down-shuttle-prog,21007/

Nice find, Jonimus, thanks for sharing. Sad but true, in a way.

Boing Boing mentioned this too. One particularly intriguing quote from the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first time a human orbited the Earth: