End of the road for the space shuttle

[imamartian]

Amazing viewing seeing the last sapce shuttle take off... being there for the previous launch was an amazing experience!

Anyway, my question .... without the shuttle, how is the ISS going to continue in existence? I know the Russians can send up rockets, but can they get the people back? and what's the future for the ISS?

 

[EngStudent]

The Russian Soyuz brings people back.

Infact, this photo needs posting. It's a picture of Endeavour docked with the ISS, taken by Paolo Nespoli aboard a Soyuz capsule that had just left the station.

As for the future of the ISS, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#End_of_mission

 

[imamartian]

what an incredible photo !!

 

[snico]

I thought they where going to just let it rot in space at a higher orbit. Too expensive to keep it going

 

[imamartian]

rot in space

that doesn't happen does it without oxygen?

 

[thatbloke]

It makes me wonder what is next , or what is already happening that they are not telling us about. They wouldnt just stop their space program like that and walk away from it.

 

[snico]

rot in space

that doesn't happen does it without oxygen?

Technically no, but they call it an orbital decay. When they just let redundant satellites continue their orbit.

They could bring it down to earth but that would cost millions.....I think they should leave it up there, gives us something to watch on a clear night when it passes over

 

[EngStudent]

A lot of the stuff up there can last a lot longer than the projected end of the 'mission'.

I think once everybody has stopped worrying about money, governments will be willing to pour money back into space programs. It'd be a massive loss to everyone if we no longer had a space station.

If/when it is decommissioned it'd be nice to see it kitted out with monitoring equipment, some huge batteries and attached to a massive rocket and sent on a similar journey as the Voyager craft, but I can't see that happen!

 

[Graeme]

I had tickets to see a night-time shuttle launch in 2008 but the launch was cancelled and was not in Florida when it re-scheduled 6 months later.

I'll get over it one day...

 

[kirkgas]

It makes me wonder what is next , or what is already happening that they are not telling us about. They wouldnt just stop their space program like that and walk away from it.

we watched the launch live on florida telly then nipped outside to see the ship up in the air, the next thing they have already started is funded by private companies, they already have the prototype built according to the guy this morning

 

[Mw Roofline]

We're in Florida once a year for 3 weeks but never there when a launch is due. Is it still worth going to the centre for a day out or is there not much to do?

 

[sooey]

It's worth going just to see the saturn 5.

 

[Space cat]

A lot of the stuff up there can last a lot longer than the projected end of the 'mission'.

It can indeed. There is, as imamartian says, no oxygen up there so it won't 'rot' like an abandoned building. It's subject to considerable radiation damage but I would expect it to have been designed for that.

I think once everybody has stopped worrying about money, governments will be willing to pour money back into space programs.

If they don't, I'm sure somebody else will. It's a huge mass of useful hardware that doesn't have to be lifted, at great expense, out of Earth's gravity. To draw an analogy from a time when much of the planet was uncharted, it would be like having an uninhabited island with a city already built on it. That's got to be worth something to somebody.

If/when it is decommissioned it'd be nice to see it kitted out with monitoring equipment, some huge batteries and attached to a massive rocket and sent on a similar journey as the Voyager craft

It wasn't designed for that but it is a very good place from which to launch such probes. It's also a good place from which to start building a much bigger Moon station. A lot of material we would need is already on the Moon but we would still have to take stuff and the less of it that has to be got off the ground the better.

 

[thatbloke]

Apparently NASA are investing in private companies, spacex seems to be the way they are going.

 

[ColJack]

space sex?? wohoo....