NASA, SpaceX set May 27 as target date for first crew launch
spaceflightnow.com
spaceflightnow.com
"The shuttle replica accompanied an expected presentation of a U.S. flag that was flown on the first and last shuttle missions. The 8- by 12-inch flag, which was revealed by President Barack Obama during his call to the astronauts last week, will stay on board the station until the shuttle's successor arrives.
"This flag represents not just a symbol of our national pride and honor, but in this particular case, it represents a goal," Ferguson said. "This flag will be flown prominently here by the forward hatch of Node 2, to be returned to Earth once again by an astronaut that launches on a U.S. vehicle, hopefully in just a few years." [9 Weird Things That Flew On NASA's Shuttles]
Both the model and flag were hung near and on the hatch where 35 space shuttle crews have entered the station and where the STS-135 astronauts exited for a final time soon after presenting the mementos."
https://www.space.com/12335-shuttle-astronauts-flag-model-sp...
- mission commander not being changed
- rocket not blowing up on the pad
- rocket reaching correct orbit
- mission not being completed, for instance docking issues
- everything that could possibly go wrong on the return flight
Really, the ease with which everybody seems to assume that this will go off without a hitch is impressive, this is not exactly walking to the corner store to pick up a small parcel.
Imagine if anytime anyone spoke about spaceflight, they saw fit to include a giant disclaimer of everything that could go wrong. We'd all just end up sounding like drug commercials.
Friend: I'm going to grab more drinks from the store
You: There are several very large assumptions implicit in that sentence
Friend: ?
You: Your car can break down, you can get in an accident on the way there, the store can be robbed and you can get shot, you may get a call about your parents dying on the way, a meteor may strike and kills us all...
* You could sprain your ankle and not make it
* The parcel might have been stolen by a robber
* The corner store might be on fire
* Feral dogs might chase you to the other side of town
I don't think those are "large" assumptions, they're pretty standard things that can go wrong with every flight. Not that useful to have to enumerate them every time anyone talks about spaceflight.
Having the machine that does that work realign with the angular velocity of the surface of Earth under its own power in any way other than "catastrophic disintegration" is arguably the harder task, and this new method of doing it is still very novel.
The Tesla in space was cool but in the end it wasn't more of an accomplishment than placing any other satellite out there.
A thousand years from now, no one will remember the richest person, or who had the most fame or political influence. But, they'll remember the names of the first humans on Mars.
Jim Bridenstine really knows how to talk politics. I must say I very impressed with his tenure so far, the NASA Administrator is not really all that powerful of a position but given how much opposition there was to him being a Trump selection he does do well.
This is such a vital step to make LEO a commercial domain. NASA is spending way to much money on LEO and to make any moon/mars future possible that needs to be commercial. NASA only want to launch max. 4 people per ship, but it can take 7. So the price could really be cheap pretty cheap to allow a fair amount of non-NASA groups to send up people.
Axiom Space got the contract extending the ISS and a more commercial ISS could operate more efficiently in the longer run.
Eventually, with the cost of Cargo Space transportation coming down, we could actually build Space Stations in Space and make them way bigger.
For a long time, I was cynical about even the principle of going to space before we solved problems down here, but now I'm more stoic and appreciative. It's a tangible, tractable hope that gets people out of bed in the morning, and consciously keeping that candle lit is the very best of being human.
Heh, maybe now. But when NASA was created, the reason Texas was involved at all was because Senator Johnson (future President Johnson) was the head of the committee that pushed the bill to create NASA.
Technically it made no sense for mission control and training to be in Texas. It would be far more efficient in Florida.
Florida was chosen because it is the best spot to launch rockets in the US from a physics perspective (closer to the equator is better) that still had easy access from the rest of the US (which is why Hawaii was ruled out even though it would be technically better).
But yes, as a side effect of the political posturing to get NASA funded, it ended up spreading the money around the country nicely.
Hawaii wasn't even a state when NASA was created. So there was never any serious consideration for using hawaii as NASA headquarters or launching site. The same goes for puerto rico which is much closer to the equator ( and the lower 48 ) than hawaii. It's not a state, so you can't put something as important as NASA or a launch site on puerto rico.
It's strange, but NASA is older than the state of hawaii.
Technically yes, NASA predates Hawaii by 13 months, but it was well on it's way to statehood by then. The statehood act passed congress in the early 1950s, before the discussions about NASA began.
Cape Canaveral was chosen as a launch site before the discussions about NASA began, too; the first planned launch was planned before those discussions (it was postponed) under the auspices of the early space program coordinated by NACA Special Committee on Space Technology prior to the proposal to build NASA to incorporate and replace NACA.
The statehood act was passed in March 1959.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Admission_Act
And I wouldn't say it was well on its way to statehood. There were lots of racial, political, historical, etc issues at play. Were it not for the desire to grant alaska statehood, it's likely that hawaii would still not be a state given their demographic.
So it didn't pass congress ( house and senate )? "The statehood act passed congress in the early 1950s"
Also, it's my understanding that bills get considered by congress and once passed by congress, then it becomes an act ( law ). So as far as hawaii goes, there has been one and only one statehood act. But I may be wrong here.
A similar transition happened in the 1500s when we went from only nation states (though they weren't called that back then) being able to justify the cost of transportation to the Americas to any old bunch of Christian extremists being able to afford to make the trip.
I really hope I live long enough to see state sponsored and then commodity travel to places other than our planet.
As the government evolved, the title gained more meaning. I sometimes wonder if the leaders of younger countries that use it understand its original meaning.
President doesn't come from the word "present" [1], and has been used for millennia (2ish) more than you're implying.
When money is involved, somebody will find a way to ruin it.
And oh, by the way: since he started in Janaury, he can blame literally everything on the previous leadership. Probably one of the most cake jobs in America right now.
The salary of a CEO would be nice but I wouldn't want the jobs. CEOs tend to be workaholics with a poor family life. Even the bad ones spend a lot of time working.
I doubt the CEO feels all that good about life right now.
And even if you are right, that fact that you’d want the same says a lot about you.
ISS is not really designed to operate unmanned for any length of time & you could easily loose it due to some simple failure that the crew on board can easily address.