NASA plans to park space shuttle Atlantis in 2008

SpaceflightNow ^ | 2/17/06 | William Harwood - CBS News

[Names Ash Housewares]

Im going to make it a point to get to the east coast and see a shuttle launch someday. Im on the other side of the country. I imagine the shuttle derived unmanned stack for getting the mission specific hardware up there will make a bit of noise too. Its going to be a monster. The manned CEV rocket will not be as impressive.

[Jotmo]

Sorry. No tail number. The only ones I remember were mine. 79-0219 and 82-0659.

[JRios1968]

Crap, I hope you weren't the crew chief I just dumped on. :o I don't even remember what he looked like. Just the shiny boots and pressed uniform. LOL

LOL No worries there...in 1985-88, I was fresh out of high school and in college...I didn't come in till 1993, and then as an officer.

[wxdawg]

My point, of course, is that humans explore..it is part of our genetic code. And the thrill of exploring the unknown is not satisfied by seeing pictures sent back from probes. Why else would we have journeyed to the South Pole..or climbed Mt. Everest...or have gone to the moon.

Of course, the payback in tech transfer from our space activities has more than paid for itself. In the 1970s..after the height of Apollo...the average return to the GDP by efficiencies gained from tech transfer was 23 dollars for each dollar invested in NASA. By the 1990s, that figure had dropped to 7 to 1, but still impressive. Of all of our federal investments, the NASA investment has been one of our best. Just ask any stroke victim learning how to regain their balance using machines first developed for astronauts returning from space...or a person whose life was saved by early detection from an MRI. I could go on, but I know there are people on this board who would refuse to support our human space endeavors no matter what evidence of their necessity is given...I guess they would just rather turn that part of the human journey over to the Chinese.

[Jotmo]

I tried at one time to locate my old A-10's but never could track them down. Probably in the desert collecting dust in mothball.

[JRios1968]

This website might help.

[demlosers]

I tried at one time to locate my old A-10's but never could track them down. Probably in the desert collecting dust in mothball.

Here it is.

:-)

[Kirkwood]

"That's "space station", singular."

There have been 3 formal space stations: Soyuz maintained by cosmonauts; Skylab repaired in space and maintained by astronauts; and the ISS built and maintained by both astronauts and cosmonauts. There have also been a number of on-board SpaceLabs flown in the shuttle bay that were essentially short-term space stations based on their configuration.

[Names Ash Housewares]

"We have whole planets to explore, we have new worlds to build. We have a solar system to roam in. And if only a tiny fraction of the human race reaches out toward space, the work they do there will totally change the lives of all the billions of humans who remain on earth, just as the strivings of a handful of colonists in the new world totally changed the lives of everyone in Europe, Asia & Africa." -Astronaut Dick Scobee (A note found in his briefcase by his wife after he was lost on Challenger)

His widow June wrote.......

"Had Dick left the note in his briefcase for us to find if something happened? Did he write it on scratch paper to use to quote in a speech? All we'll ever know is that when we most needed a message, it was there. He left for us his dream for the world, his vision for space exploration."

[Tommyjo]

Both are still in the inventory. At least as of 2005! Aircraft enthusiasts have noted them:

79-0219 was last noted with the 103rd FS during August 2005

82-0659 was last noted with the 103rd FS during May 2005

This is an image of 79-0219 during the Wright-Patterson show in 2003:

[Jotmo]

That's it! My baby!

How did you find that? You are the web search master!

FReepers are awesome!

[Mulder]

We could have explored half the solar system by now, if not for the imagined need to produce retired astronaughts who travel the country telling school kids about their heroic achievement of breeding worms in zero-gravity.

Or if they put more priority on real science instead of putting the first amputee midget porn star from turdworldistan into space.

[SteveMcKing]

I see.

Of equal significance to the shuttle issues, I believe, is why Dan Goldin was not sent to jail for his criminal management failures. Not to be judgemental....

[Tommyjo]

Type 'scramble on the web' into Google. It is a database where you will find military serials. The images are simply generated by putting the serial into Google images. Just on the off-chance that the photographer labelled it by serial! Couldn't find your other bird, but it its nose art has been photographed.

Probably not the nose-art it carried when you last saw it?

[SunkenCiv]

Ping!

[FreedomCalls]

That's "space station", singular.

The present ISS is but one of a long line of predecessors. First Salyut-1, then Skylab, followed by Salyut-4, Salyut-6, and Salyut-7. These were followed by Mir which was on orbit for 15 incredible years.