So far the countdown is going smoothly! Shuttle Endeavour is poised for blastoff at 8:56 a.m. EDT (1256 GMT) on a 16-day flight to deliver an exotic particle physics experiment and a hefty load of spare parts to the International Space Station.
Mission Status Center Updates
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2 comments:
Not just another flight, is it? I love the fact that Kelly's lady picked "Beautiful Day," the same song she chose for another flight when they were dating.
I have a simple question and wondering whether anyone in NASA thought about it.
Why retire any of the orbiters? Why not just have one last flight for each of them and leave them orbiting space?
Plan?
1. Upgrade the crew compartment so that its space radiation face.
2. Install multiple EDO (Extended Duration Orbiter)
3. Install retractable solar panels into the cargo bay that attaches to the mechanical arm called SRMS (Shuttle Remote Manipulator System). When the orbiter is in space the arm can attach to the solar panel, take it out and retract the panels for power. Better yet, install a second SRMS into the orbiter so that you can have two large solar panels that can be attached more even more power.
4. Install a fuel module into the cargo bay that can be used by the orbiters main engines so that it can leave orbit.
All these modifications are simple to do and would cost much much less.
What space missions can be possible?
1. Leave one attached to the space station for emergency reentry and used for repairing satellites and other things.
2. Make frequent trips to the moon, transporting supplies back and forth as well as transporting lunar landers.
3. Go into deep space visiting asteroids (deep space missions)
4. Make long duration trips to mars, again transporting supplies back and forth with a mars lander. What about fuel to get to mars? Simple, just make a fuel tank just like the space shuttle external tank (ET) and have it attached to the bottom of the orbiter to supply enough fuel to get to mars and back.
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