Visionz

Discovery Set to Launch Thursday Afternoon on STS-133 Mission



Discovery and crew are in final preparations for launch at 4:50 p.m. EST on Feb. 24. Commander Steve Lindsey and the STS-133 astronauts will deliver the Permanent Multipurpose Module and Robonaut 2 to the International Space Station.



Cryogenic propellants are flowing into space shuttle Discovery's external fuel tank this morning as the countdown to this afternoon's launch moves ahead. Liftoff time set for 4:50 p.m. The launch team performs the fueling operations by remote control from the Launch Control Center. The first phase of the fueling is called "slow fill" to allow the pumps, lines and tank to condition themselves to the super cold chemicals. The liquid oxygen is at minus-297 degrees F and the liquid hydrogen is at minus 423 degrees F. The propellants are used by the shuttle's three main engines at liftoff.



Teams are not working any issues that would delay today's liftoff.



This will be the last mission for Discovery, which has made 38 prior trips to space.

majik

I wonder if they'll accidentally leave some radioactive residue or important items in space that'll perhaps require a revisit.



I'm not sure how I feel about space discovery getting axed from the budgets. I believe there are better ways to apply our money right now.

187sks

This isn't the last mission, just for this shuttle. There are a couple left. It is a sad day that we are abandoning our manned exploration of space.



All from a report detailing NASA's budget in 2007: For every one dollar spent on NASA, the feds spend 98 dollars on social programs. IMO if anything the budget needs to increase significantly. In 2007 NASA was 0.58% of the national budget. The feds spent 38 times the NASA budget on defense. Paying interest on our national debt was 23.5 times the NASA budget.



During the Apollo era NASA budget was 5% of national spending. Today that would be about 191 Billion dollars, not the 18.7 Billion dollars allocated. For that kind of money we could be significantly colonizing Mars and the Moon, and developing the necessary infrastructure to truly commercialize space.



As far as returning, it would take many years to re-start shuttle missions. There aren't enough spare parts to continue flying, and the tooling for things like the external fuel tanks has already been disposed of.

Stocker

Guys, in case you missed it, the other day there was a successful test of a PRIVATE rocket that is intended to be a junk ferry to the space station like the shuttle has been.



Faster, cheaper, and NOT funded by taxpayers at gunpoint: privately-owned space ships.

187sks

I am all for privatization of simple tasks in space. We are however nowhere near the point where we can even say with certainty that the unmanned private rocket programs will be successful at entering service. After unmanned missions are successful it will be a multi year process of certifying them for human flight, assuming that only minor modifications are required.



Private spaceflight is a win-win for everyone, but it is premature for us to abandon our national program for human spaceflight in the hopes that private companies figure it out.

WytchDctr

@ the @ gun point thing. Put it up to a vote. Do we want our country pushing out into space for national pride if anything at the cost of less than one percent of the total budget.



We need a death star... can Pepsi or McDonalds build us a death star.. no. Fund NASA screw private luxo rockets! :paranoid:



A few billion more is spent on International Assistance.. screw that. We will wave at them from our death star (see above comments)

HyundaiKitCoupe

I totally agree with 187sks. Privatization is just not guaranteed. I'm sure NASA have the top-rated people for the job, and have all of the facilities, background information, and experience necessary to carry out safe, guaranteed missions.



Another thing to consider regarding manned space exploration. Earth has a visible ring around it consisting of space junk. I believe it's not in the layer near where the shuttle and the space station travel, but somewhere in a further layer of orbit. Private or Federal, let's say you plan a mission to Mars and there's a collision with scraps of metal traveling at 000's of miles per hour, it's going to penetrate the craft and everybody inside like a bullet through foam...



Another thing to consider is there are tiny nanoparticles (leftover from the Big Bang) traveling at the speed of light that penetrate the shuttle as well as everything inside including the human body. I forget what they're called, but basically humans cannot stay in space for too long because of this.



There are many problems sending men out to space, especially Mars. Such problems that would leave the poor men helpless.

Stocker

The problems of men surviving in space have been pretty well covered already. The could of crap out there is mapped, and I'm pretty sure we can share a map. NASA is ceasing space exploration stuff in favor of outreach to the islamic world (sadly not a joke) and there are a few rocket scientists about to be looking for work wherever they can get it. In case anybody wasn't born and hasn't bothered to look, the .gov getting us into space was hardly a yellow brick road.



The death star was estimated to cost something like 7 septillion dollars, in today's money. If we can't afford Obamacare (and we can't) we sho' can't afford that!



Private companies HAVE figured it out. If there's a way to make a profit on it, it will be done if government gets out of the way with their spools of red tape. Speaking of which, something tells me about 95% of the other countries in the world would be happy to host a space launch center without all the B.S. the USA will make you take into consideration when all you want to do is put a frikken satellite in orbit.

DTN

That bs is there for a reason. We have guys mapping out the orbits of damn wrenches lost by previous flights. The US has procedures for a reason.

Stocker

The UK has procedures for a reason also. Like the cemetary with a problem of too many burrowing rodents that had to pay a 47 pound fee for a Health & Safety assessment before a professional could walk out onto the lawn and place traps. Because walking out on the lawn can be hazardous, what with all those rodents making burrows. You HAVE TO have an inspection, see? If not, your trapper could wrench his ankle and then you've got a real problem! It's for your own good we have to make you pay up for a H&S inspector to come out.



B.S. indeed. Put your new wrench trajectory on the open source map and everybody can see it. Oh wait, there's not an open source map? Wouldn't be safe? Wouldn't keep all the power under one roof?