Well it's good to now everything worked well for them. [img]smile.gif[/img]
I know I'm an uber-geek... but I love the Nasa channel. I watch liftoffs, landings, in progress space missions... hell, I even watch briefings regarding future mars missions. [img]tongue.gif[/img]
I got up a bit after 6 a.m. this morning and was plastered to the TV until the shuttle wheels touched pavement.
For those who were watching on the Today show, I apologize for the moronic ramblings of so many of the "news" casters. [img]wink.gif[/img]
Well it's good to now everything worked well for them. [img]smile.gif[/img]
That's good to hear. I can hardly imagine how tight the pucker factor was in mission control, lol.
"This safe landing brought to you by..... Duct Tape"
At least it wasn't an inanimate carbon rod. [img]tongue.gif[/img]
Good news indeed! You know they are seriously concerned about things when they won't even say re-entry anymore... now they just "de-orbit".
I wonder what their thoughts were last night?
All I kept thinking was, "I'm glad I'm not on that shuttle..."
They seriously need to go back to the drawing board.
The only part of the design that has always bugged me is why the shuttle need to be piggy-backed on the fuel tank with the boosters on either side.
It seems that if it were mounted further up so that the shedded parts were all BEHIND the orbiter, there would be less chance of the orbiter being damaged.
The only part I can see is that they use some of the orbiter engine's power for lift, not just the boosters.
Seems like it would make more sense to make it so the booster half could be shed in an emergency and then have the shuttle thrusters either get the shuttle pointed in a safe location to glide or at least to a safe area to splash down.
Why can't they just fly one up like a plane and then use a bit of booster power to jump the atmosphere?
lmfao! [img]biggrin.gif[/img]
i can understand that we all know better ways to run toy companies than the likes of todd mcfarlane... but you rocket scientists do realize that this is the freaking space shuttle, right? [img]wink.gif[/img]
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The planes that carried the space shuttle for glide tests carried an un-loaded shuttle with no fuel. We don't have any planes with enough thrust to lift a loaded shuttle. Hence the rockets currently used for launch.Originally posted by Spore:
Why can't they just fly one up like a plane and then use a bit of booster power to jump the atmosphere?
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks