Neat night-time shuttle video!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6165395.stm

It's a night time take off, it's really cool. The noise is awesome. It's still on my "life to do list" to go and see one before they are discontinued.

Probly cool to go and actually see one, but when you've seen one shuttle launch video you've seen 'em all, really.

Wow, I didn't even know there was a shuttle launch today.

To be honest, I prefer the day launches as you can see more from cameras filming the earth from the shuttle as it is flying up.

I just heard that the noise is like a physical force and it's quite an emotive thing to see in person...

Yes. It's very emotive and in a way makes you proud to be a member of human species. The only species (we know of) to actually move away from its place of birth into space. What does not make me proud is the fact that the same species is spending so much money on destruction and killing. We could've been out there already, if we were not as stupid as we are brilliant.

Barney

Yeah, also bureaucracy costs tons of money and also lots of rich people just blow money on pointless stuff.

Yay for future space elevators, no more noise, no more "exploding yourself up", no more "bumping back onto the atmosphere with 25000mph".

As postulated by A.C.Clarke in the 50s re: geostationary statellite with monomolecular filament as the lift cable.

I always laugh when I hear 'space experts' opine how we're going to have a moonbase sometime soon (and yes, I know NASA is making plans - but go figure) and then it'll be on to Mars.

The fact is our current way of getting into space is just too crude, risky and downright expensive to allow the sort of presence that the enthusiasts like to envision.

Having said that, it's worth seeing where America's really spending its space dollar - and that's in military space projects.

Yeah rockets sure are primative. In the future it will belook back upon as if it's a steam engine and will be quite funny.

'as if it's a steam engine and will be quite funny'

No mate - when the oil/energy crunch bites this century, rockets will be seen as belonging to a golden age...

That future is very, very far away.

I am a chemist, and the laws of chemistry say that our current brand of rockets are as good as it gets, unless you use cubane or metallic hydrogen (which would just be silly).

Space elevators... don't make me laugh. Nano-tech as a whole is barely off the drawing-board and the fullerines required for your lift are still firmly nailed to it. Sure, they show promise, but promise doesn't always translate into reality. Case and point, spider silk. Sure umpteen times stronger than steal, loads of applications lined up, turns out that the compound used expands 9x and loses its strength on contact with moisture. Not bad for a spider who only expects the web to last a while and can rebuild it quickly. Bad news for any practical human application. I fear a similar fate for fullerines.

Yeh, this whole thread is not going to last long, but it needs to be said.

Perhaps we started the whole space race thing wrongly - by using the crude chemical energy to lift us up. We should have started the other way around - using the anti-gravity from the beginning.

Barney

..what I know after seen this video is that roughly about 100 tons of dirt/Co2 or whatever was released in to atmosphere...go global warming go...

*rolls eyes*

The main engines of the space shuttle run on hydrogen and oxygen reacting together to produce water.

The boosters use ammonium perchlorate and aluminum (they do produce a little CO2 from the polymer binder, but it is not the primary fuel).

If anything, it is a vision of the future in its use of hydrogen.

Yeah everyone rockets don't use Oil/Gas. Mind you you the oxygen and hyrodogen were compressed with energy and that energy needed to come from somewhere ...

NASA channel on the TV rocks. Been watching it periodically since the launch, and before.

That thought is the same argument used against extracting Hydrogen for hydrogen fuel cells. It's not a problem; once an alternative energy source actually catches on, it all works fine. The only reason it's a problem at first is because at first there is no infrastructure for it. (While our usual gasoline has been around for ages, thus has a very solid infrastructure). Worth pointing out, though, that even with gasoline's infrastructure, operations tend to burn copious quantities of fossil fuels (far better than gasoline) to extract oil from the ground.

Didn't John Carmack and co. design a rocket that ran on ethanol?

To get this whole thing relevant, and because I'm still sort of obsessed (especially when I get 2 monitors going with it!), here is a neat little simulator that's always fun to play with. It helps to reduce that irritating "why am I not an astronaut?" thought back down to "I'm glad I'm not an astronaut!".

-Orbiter Space Flight Simulator

-Very awesome new and highly detailed version of the Space Shuttle Fleet add-on (for some dumb reason divided into multiple files and being horribly confusing!):
http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2633
http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2634
http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2641
http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2642
http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2643
http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2447
http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2669
http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2680

-STS-116 Expansion Pack:
http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2712


To prove how awesome it all is:
Who needs space shuttles when you have...


There are many more awesome screen shots from that episode here.


Anyway, back to NASA. Yay, more successful space shuttle launching!
I wish the CEV wasn't such a step backwards. It actually feels like the space shuttles will end in a bad way, instead of pushing forward to a newer and brighter future with better, more solid and more stable vehicles.

Remember how the shuttles were supposed to be single stage vehicles?
That means they were originally designed so they did not drop any junk anywhere. Launching a space shuttle would have been like launching a minivan into space. Just fill 'er up and go!
No external fuel tank, no booster rockets...

However, they decided to make it able to lift more instead :(

I'm hoping the CEV returns to that original idea of being a single stage vehicle, but it's looking unlikely so far.
It's quite unfortunate, since an organization like NASA should be encouraging the notion of being nice to our environment.

Say hello to the usual culprit, the military. It's hard to spy on everybody and everything with small satellites, hence the bigger shuttle. Also... only God knows how many nukes or similar crap the shuttle has brought up during those secretive military missions.

Barney

Grey,

A few years back my family and I were there to see STS107 launch (the one which broke up in the atmosphere on the way back).

The launch was phenomenal - I have it on DV, if I get chance I shall try and make it available via a link.

The sound is unbeleivable. The sound is like the air literally cracks - like a constant thunder crackling noise - its hard to describe.

An increbile sight and sound.

IPete2.

yeah I bet it was awesome!