Watching Shuttle Launch!

[High_Jumbllama]

http://www.nasa.gov

[Nowhere]

I wonder if I'm "translating" hours correctly...

Launch in 0,5 h?

Or is it 1,5?

edit: I wonder, will Real from akamia would be better on 128kbps downstream than wmv from yahoo? Or perhaps much less crowded ta least?
I can probably still made it with installing...

edit2: RealPlayer 8 was the last good version, da?

[High_Jumbllama]

The Windows Media feed crapped out on me at about T -50 seconds. Grrr.

[Nowhere]

Yeah...and I missed the exact moment of launch (and it was on TV...)

I hope it's all good...([black humour]it would be really ironic if the damage was caused this time by one of extra cameras falling of the tank[/black humour])

([tasteless humour]perhaps there should have been funeral ceremony before flight, that way the atronauts could attend [/tasteless humour])

[Lizzard[MPE]]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHh

i FORGOT. FORGOT ABOUT THE LAUNCH.

[Lizzard[MPE]]

i mean all i had to do was walk outside. FFS

[High_Jumbllama]

This is pretty good.

[High_Jumbllama]

Grounded again.

[KvHagedorn]

All that time and money and they STILL DIDN'T FIX THE PROBLEM???

The whole agency needs to be fired. I could have solved that problem in one second.. and for only 100 million dollars..

[VJ]

I found their emergency plan laughable...
It was said on the news here: If the crew can't return with Discovery, Atlantis will be launched (with less safety checks) to go and fetch them".

What idiot thinks of these plans? ("hey, it isn't rocket science - oh wait, it is")

I mean, if it happened to Discovery, chances are it will happen to Atlantis as well. The emergency plan should be to return with a Russian craft (ok, it would hugely dent Nasas image).


Jörg

[Dr Mordrid]

IMO they need to mothball 'em, contract with the Russians to do the space station rides, use heavy lifts to get modules up and start on a capsule based CEV as soon as they can get a design that makes sense. To hell with the 2 group contest, let's get on with it.

Why capsule? 5 reasons (no particular order);

1. KISS - keep it simple, stupid!! Capsules for people, heavy lifts for cargo...not both at once

2. capsules can use an escape tower in case of a screwup.

3. an ablative heat shield that can't be screwed up by your thumbnail & is encased at launch.

4. the crew cabin of the STS is about the size of the larger CEV designs anyhow.

5. wings don't do you any good in freakin' SPACE!!

Prob. should have done this after Columbia.

Dr. Mordrid

[agallag]

How hard would it have been to put the insulation on the INSIDE of the fuel tank? I mean, seriously, get it together guys...

[Nowhere]

If "would have been" means "what could have been done in the past, in the 70's" (not sure, my ENG sucks) than...AFAIK they didn't plan to put the foam at all, it was just afterthought (so the way it is placed - manually, I should add - is the only way without redesign...)

[KvHagedorn]

yep. That's about it. Redesign the damn thing.. put a skin of some sort on the outside to prevent all that crap chunking off on liftoff. DUH!

WTF? I'm pissed about the billion dollars of my taxes and two years that were wasted doing nothing worthwhile. ****ing incompetents.

[Dr Mordrid]

You don't even need to go so far as internal insulation etc.

JUST USE THE FOAM IT WAS ORIGINALLY DESIGNED TO USE !!

The problem is this that NASA originally used a spray foam that stuck like crazy, something like those spray insulating foams that stick so well they started using 'em as a glue.

This worked great for 80 some launches.

Then someone at NASA got Enviro-Wacky and decided to use a different kind of foam mix that is supposedly more "enviroment-friendly".

Problem: is doesn't stick for S**T.

Once again human lives don't count as much as PC bulls**t.

Bottom line:

There are at best 20 more shuttle missions to finish the Space Station and do the Hubble rescue mission. The environmentalists can take a rest until those missions are done and CEV starts its run.

Problem is that someone has to get off their arses and go back to the less enviro-friendly but STICKY-AS-HELL foam mix, but will NASA have the kahones to tell the Enviro-Wacko's to go to hell and give 'em directions?

Dr. Mordrid