Shuttle Landing

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glen4cindy

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Sep 14, 2004
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It never fails to amaze me. :)

What amazes me is that it will cost $2 MILLION to ferry the shuttle back to Florida.

The Shuttle Carrier Aircraft is said to burn 1 gallon of fuel for each length of the airplane travels. So, that means that for every 231 feet it travels, it burns 1 gallon of fuel! The MPG for that is like, well, AWFUL!!!
 

bubba108

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Sep 2, 2006
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.0436 miles per gallon. Wonder if that's Hwy or City?

Always wondered why they never loaded that cargo bay with some extra fuel and kicked that mule out of low earth orbit towards the moon. Point a HD camera at the moon and one looking back. Do a couple of loops around the moon and then head back. I'd pay to watch that.
 

Tron

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May 6, 2005
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I didn't pick up the NBC feed, but I watched the event on NASA TV from 119w. Maybe I can finally get my BUD up in time for STS-129, and forget about Dish's horribly compressed re-uplink. I am in the process of sanding the rust from the Perfect 10 polar mount, and once I get that painted and find a pole, I'll be in business.

It was an amazing mission and landing, congratulations to the STS-128 crew! You can always count on Edwards AFB for nice weather. Did anyone notice those wing trails? They were more evident than usual...
 

Ilya

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Always wondered why they never loaded that cargo bay with some extra fuel and kicked that mule out of low earth orbit towards the moon. Point a HD camera at the moon and one looking back. Do a couple of loops around the moon and then head back. I'd pay to watch that.
I don't think this is possible with Shuttle even with the extra fuel. It was never designed for and is not capable of leaving low Earth orbit. It's just too heavy and not powerful enough. Don't trust the Armageddon movie! ;)
 

phlatwound

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I didn't pick up the NBC feed, but I watched the event on NASA TV from 119w. Maybe I can finally get my BUD up in time for STS-129, and forget about Dish's horribly compressed re-uplink. I am in the process of sanding the rust from the Perfect 10 polar mount, and once I get that painted and find a pole, I'll be in business.

It was an amazing mission and landing, congratulations to the STS-128 crew! You can always count on Edwards AFB for nice weather. Did anyone notice those wing trails? They were more evident than usual...

Yes, I did, the wing trails were more pronounced and looked darker than usual to me. I watched the feed from 72W on an old 19" analog set, very nice PQ.

Great mission, hard to believe the Shuttle operations are nearing the end. :(
 

Ilya

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Yeah, it's just too damn heavy for that. I'll miss Shuttle if it retires, but we do need a different vehicle if we want to get beyond low Earth orbit.

Just to put it in prospective:

ISS orbit: 200 miles from the Earth.
Geostationary orbit (the Clarke Belt): 22,000 miles from the Earth
Moon orbit: 239,000 miles…
 

bubba108

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Sep 2, 2006
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I've always wondered about whether sending a shuttle to the moon was feasible or not. Just did a search and came up with this answer...
Good answer, thanks.
Guess they need a bigger rubber band. :)

The NASA feed is on several different satellites. I got it yesterday on:

NBC MUX-in fact it's still up.

CBS Newspath on Galaxy 16 99W KU-They have a big march on DC on now.

ABC Feeds-Galaxy 28 89W KU- They are showing that march also now. BIG crowd.
 
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