I can't believe how numb I feel about this being the final mission for this shuttle. (She was always my favorite. Enterprise should have been but it's hard to love a flightless bird.) I usually reserve this level of depression for the death of a family member.
I was 12 when the first shuttle launched. The program has just always been there. It was a given, part of life. Now there are only two flights left (assuming they get the funding) and my favorite has been retired. That's okay though, because they're being replaced with the newer, better... Oh, right. We (USA) have no replacement for the shuttle program. How the fuck did this happen?
This was a great mission with a beautiful landing. Someone said the ship was being retired "at the top of her game." That's awesome and horrible at the same time. Farewell Discovery.
> Ask any real astrophysicist, and they'll probly say the same.
True, it ~was~ the bastard child of what it was conceived to be and what the government wanted/would pay for it to be. That is kinda what makes it so special. From all the bureaucracy around the design it probably shouldn't have worked at all.
"You know we're sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon and a thing that has 270000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder."
Yes, sad, but now we have a spanking new space station complex ? Some people complain about the lack of days as glorious as the Apollo era. I wonder if they have ever watched a space walk when you can see the earth below - live - from the astronauts helmet cam ?
Anyhow I've seen pictures of a another space plane in development. NASA could yet have another shuttle-like vehicle but without the launcher (fly off the ground into space). I say we launch and have a party up their ASAP.
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