Oversprayer, you are wrong. It is NOT gravity that will eventually cause the ISS orbit decay. It is indeed drag: drag between the ISS and the very tenuous atmosphere at the ISS's altitude. It gradually, over the years, slows the Station and causes its perigee to lower. If unchecked, eventually the perigee would be low enough such that much greater drag forces do indeed cause the ISS to burn up. That was prevented during the Shuttle years not just by OMS burns, but also by the Russian Zayrya (spelling?) module and Soyuz and Progress spacecraft. But it is NOT gravity. Gravity simply opposes centripital acceleration to keep the ISS in orbit. If Earth was an airless body, the ISS would stay in orbit pretty much forever.

Falcon, no such manned heavylift vehicle exists, NONE!!!! I wish it did, but wishing don't make it so.... (sigh)

There is a bright spot in that a new heavy lift and seperate manned vehicle are being developed and the boosters are almost to the qualification stages. Just hope that it all comes together as intended so we can get back to the lead in space exploration....My job kinda depends on it.

Dr Neil deGrasse Tyson has been campaigning for the continuation of space exploration and research for quite some time now. Sharp guy. When JFK said "We are going to put a man on the moon" it forcibly drove innovation and creativity, and pushed our nation to the forefront of the scientific world. Since then, we've become complacent, and let the rest of the world catch up (and arguably pass us) in innovation, and THIS lack of drive to innovate in his (and my) opinion is why the US is falling behind.

Just out of curiosity, how much useful life did the current (retired) orbiters have left in them? I was under the impression the current shuttle system was shut down because replacing the current orbiters would have been horribly cost prohibitive due to the production processes no longer being in place.

The thing that angers me about the general populace of the USA is the willful ignorance of the value of research and development. They look at NASA's budget and say stupid things like "Why are we bothering to spend so much money on space when we have so many problems right here on earth" with absolutely ZERO understanding of what prior space efforts have produced for their basic way of life. And when you look at NASA's budget in relation to other facets of the government, you see just what a drop in the proverbial bucket it is comparably.

That was a truly awesome video. It's a shame more Americans don't get to see these videos. I also watched the video of the recovery of the boosters. I feel the pain of all those who's jobs were lost, and there were many.

My question is, Who stands to gain the most from the US not having this type of program?
I believe these are the ones behind the loss of the space program.

KaP2011
Ultra Sport Brotherhood #110

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Bingo! Exactly! Even more, some of the "problems" we have here on earth, you could pour *trillions* into and they'd still not be solved!

I still go back to my contention that when the funding fathers laid out our system of government, they didn't intend for the ignorant to have as great a voice as the intelligent - hence the Electoral College. If we keep catering to the lowest common denominator, that's where we'll end up, at the lowest common denominator. Certainly everyone has their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but we have to keep in mind that there are often (not always) God-given, fundamental differences between the students in my engineering classes and the homeless people in the park across the street, and no amount of $'s is going to get some (not all) of those guys to hold a regular job, so instead, spend the $'s on the engineering students...

Soap box off...

Bob

So that would be why the Gravitational force the Earth exherts on the moon doesnt cause it to come crashing down?! Er wait didnt I learn that in High School Physics??? Something about Gravity, rotational vectors, and constanting falling to center of mass in a circular pattern, like a tennis ball in a sling shot, or maybe Islept during that class

Isn't this the bases of Fascism, Nazism or elitism? One set of people are more important than another? Sometimes those poeple on the street are their because society is too self centered and greedy to help. I've helped in soup kitchens and in prisons, I've seen how "civilized" America really is (and it really isn't when it comes to those without Power and Money). If Americans bought into a "pay it forward" attitude (rather than greedy grinches) we'd have less homeless and more engineers.

You can educate bums and give them jobs
BUT
You can’t make them work.

Hopefully we will see Obama’s career come to an end Too.
The sooner the better.

Huh? The SRBs are qualified for use on Shuttle, but not SLS, at least not yet. But the SRBs are the easy part. They could be ready real soon. SLS is the issue! The very first SLS flight is not cuurently scheduled until 2017! And that is an un-manned Orion flight around the moon. The very first manned flight is not until 2021 (I think)!!! JFK said "before this decade is out" in 1962 and 7.5 years later, Neil was on the lunar surface. And that had most of Mercury, all of Gemini and the applicable portion of Apollo stuffed into those 7.5 years!!! And it will be 9 years until humans fly on Orion??? What the HELL????

Quite honestly, I give a manned Orion a 50/50 chance. If this fool gets back into the White House, make that a 20% chance of ever flying. SLS is even lower. SLS with liquid strap ons, even lower still.

We as a nation are finished when we no longer care about doing great things. We are done....

No, I don't think so. Fascism and Nazism were horrific, criminal singling out of certain types of people and persecuting them or holding them down in some way. However, there are a significant number of people who simply will not succeed at a level that most people consider "normal" because they either don't have the capacity, or they simply don't want to. If you don't explore space until all of the homeless people in the park across the street have homes, then you will simply not ever explore space - and if you don't humanity looses much more than if we don't shelter everyone who doesn't have a home...

Watching Discovery fly over Washington is not an occasion for smiling and taking pictures but an occasion to reflect on the declining greatness of this country and a call-to-arms to try and fix it.

Yes, you are right in that American society has problems and insensitivity is one of them - at all levels, from the Mother who drives around all day by herself in a GMC Yukon to the criminals at Lehman Brothers. However, our slipping world position in technology, education, and innovation is a much bigger problem.

I spend a lot of time in my job providing opportunities to less fortunate students and in fact, that's what I like about working at a "lesser" university - we provide an opportunity for students to enter a career that they otherwise would not have. A *significant* number of our students are the first ones in their family to ever go to college. That is great... We need to provide opportunities for people, but making sure that everyone has everything that they need regardless of their situation is a recipe for mediocrity - just ask the Soviets...


Bob

We've discussed politics, religion....anyone want to weigh in on sex? Hey guys, it was just a video I thought would be interesting.

George

Woketman, I didn't say they were qualified, I said they are in the process of doing the qualification tests on the motors. They added a 5th segment and are having to do some more engineering on the nozzle since the vectoring on the current SRB's needs to be improved.

The company I work for manufactures the main ingredient for the propellant in the boosters, (and just about every other solid fuel motor that is produced, i.e., the Atlas, Tomohawk, Sparrow, etc.). I have been involved with the Shuttle program since 1989. There are two vehicles in the works, as to who will end up producing the boosters for either or both of them remains to be seen. That is, if they decide to go with solid fuel rather than hand it over to private business and for some reason are swayed to think that liquid fuel will work better. One is a manned flight vehicle and the other being the heavy lift. Whether either of these will ever see the darkness of space remains to be seen, but I can tell you from personal experience that we have just processed over 1 million pounds of Ammonium Perchlorate to be used for either a demonstration or qualification motor to be cast within the near future. Where it goes from here is anyone's guess, let's just hope it goes the right direction.

This is a video I took of the Ares Development Motor 2, (DM-2), firing on Aug. 31, 2010. This is a 5 segment motor.

http://youtu.be/QFD0rbd-7zU

Freaking amazing video!!!!! what a shame those days are over...... NASA is great but no where near as great as they once were...

During the space race, people were willing to take acceptable risks and push forward. None of our development 'pushes' these days. While I understand the technology is drastically different, I look back at aircraft development from WW2 to today and the process now is so mired down in nonsense it amazes me we get ANYTHING flying these days. North American brought the prototype of the A-36 Apache (P-51 Mustang) from a clean sheet of paper to rollout in 126 DAYS. That's design, construction, and ready for first flight. There's simply no way we could ever do anything like that any more, even adjusted to account for increased complexity. We have no sense of urgency any more.

Presuming everything goes well in the next week, the first private owned cargo spaceship(!) will dock with the ISS

IMHO a very, very significant step in space exploration, almost like first men in moon.



http://www.spacex.com/falcon9.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdLIT...eature=related

I have been hearing lots of horror stories about the quality of work and the hap-hazard techniques at SpaceX directly from NASA guys connected to the COTS Program. It is just a matter of time until they have a huge catastrophie. They are trying to do it on the cheap. Remember what Dan Golden taught us all unintentionally: you can have any two of "Better, Cheaper, Faster", but not all three!!!!

yes, it is certain that with limited funds the safety and quality will be compromised, however taking a look in the P-51 example wich was turned into reality into little more than 100 days: This plane was never built without a twin cockpit version for training.
All this because of the war effort urgency... it made no sense to save a dozen future pilots if hundreds of thousands lives where at risk in WWII.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7403938n

Definitely a tough pill to swallow with the cancellation of the space shuttle. What a great group of people, minds and achievements. I was very fortunate to see many launches.

"Arguably the greatest engineering achievement of man..."

That made my day ... Nothing I'll see today or any other time could top that!

SO who is up for a ride on the VSS Enterprise? If only I had the $200K . Don't be so gloomy folks, there are really cool things still going on in the private sector. Can't always leave things up to Uncle Sam, the people have the power to take care of business.

Great video George .... thanks for posting it. I think I've watched it 10 times already. Bob

Yes, the private sector MAY get cargo and (much later) humans to LEO, but that is it for a long time. You won't see anything more in our lifetimes, certainly not if things keep going the way they are now.

It is an awesome video, but I for one, can't watch it without feeling the pangs of regret that we just don't do stuff like that anymore - and that's *all* because of politics, unfortunately...

Bob

Welfare and government handout social programs are the same thing as space programs and defense spending - except no one has to work and has, therefore, all the time on their hands for drug trafficking and other criminal activities (or having babies).