International Space Station Tour
youtube.com
youtube.com
I'll be pretty disappointed if that doesn't happen though.
I'm hoping recent developments with scramjets (the X-51) will lead to single stage to orbit, and more specifically Air launch to orbit.
I wonder how long the most-people-concurrently-in-space-record (13) will stand after the shuttles retire. It could be a long time …
Taken on its own merits, the Shuttle gives the impression
of a vehicle designed to be launched repeatedly to
near-Earth orbit, tended by five to seven passengers with
little concern for their personal safety, and requiring
extravagant care and preparation before each flight, with
an almost fetishistic emphasis on reuse. Clearly this
primitive space plane must have been a sacred artifact,
used in religious rituals to deliver sacrifice to a sky
god.
But by his metric, manned flights as a whole are meaningless. That everything we do must be useful and come with a predictable ROI is questionable. Do we need the pyramids, the cathedrals? What about the LHC?
Manned flights as a whole are meaningless. They accomplish no purpose but to generate PR for billion dollar handouts to defense contractors.
There is nothing -- nothing -- humans can do in space that systems cannot do better, with the exceptions of "mug for the camera" and "perish". What passes for "science experiments" in space bears more resemblance to a high school fair in microgravity than to actual science.
(Here's a spider spinning its web... in microgravity! With four highly trained military officers and a few hundred million in hardware along for the ride!)
Sure, but people /do want/ to fly, and visit the moons of saturn. Well I don't know for you, but I sure want to :) It's probably the main motivation for space exploration at the individual level.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwEyWrEqXmg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNQ8s2jnMTc