TheMadCap

Well here we go Meazza, this is what you wanted. I think Italy takes it, thier goalkeeper is better. Looks like Lou Diamond Phillips though, Buffoon is his name...

One step closer to authorizing one final Hubble mission... With the official word from NASA, that STS-121 is the "cleanest" ever, administration is one step closer to authorizing STS-115, the final service mission to the HST. The issue is that this will be the only mission where safety on the ISS will not be an option. So if something goes wrong with the launch, like a major damage incident to the thermal protection system, the astronauts are dead...

What about the game against NE in about 95 where if we won we would have made the playoffs and Reed fumbled the ball in the fourth quarter to put the nail in the coffin? That one really burned me up...

Not only that, but CEOs are ultimately responsible for thier companies product and/or work, and can also get big jail time if employees mess up...

Just saw Discovery and the ISS fly overhead. Pretty awesome...

You'd make a great politician...

True, and there was a part on the yacht where Luthor holds the kryptonite near the kid and he turns a bit green to the gills...

This was a huge point of contention in the world of comics. In fact, to make Superman a little more "realistic", in 1986 they revamped the character, diminishing many of his super powers, removing all but one piece of kryptonite (there were literally thousands of pounds of the stuff laying around before, in all colors nontheless), etc. Recently, I am told that they have since removed some of the restrictions placed on his powers with a revised origin (yet again). And of course, the changing of Superman into friggin Firestorm the Electroman in the late 1990s...

SHUTTLE UPDATE - DAY FOUR Discovery Damage - Images have been acquired that show serveral areas of damage to TPS (Thermal Protection System) tiles and blankets on Shuttle Discovery. While all of the damage is small, the images are currently being poured over by engineers to confirm Discovery will not require any repair work, and will be cleared for re-entry next week - as expected. Leonardo module installed on ISS - The Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) has been unloaded from Shuttle Discovery's payload bay, and docked on to Node 1 of the International Space Station (ISS) - at the start of Flight Day Four for STS-121. The container, called Leonardo, more than two tons of equipment, supplies, spare parts, crew supplies and experiments. More to come...

hahaha Glen you rock! No pun intended.

SHUTTLE UPDATE: Shuttle Discovery has caught up to the International Space Station (ISS), and docked with the outpost at 3:54pm UK time on Flight Day 3 of STS-121...

Interesting point. When the shuttle was proposed in the late 60's/early 70's, it's failure rate was estimated to be between 1 in 100 and 1 in 100,000 flights. A bit generous, don't you think? Can you guess which figure was proposed by the engineers and which was championed by NASA management? After Challenger, Feynmen pointed out that the logic used to justify this figure was flawed. He emphesized the fact that management used decreasing strictness of criteria with respect to launches, a symptom that has not gone away even now. Your reliability factor is fairly accurate. I say fairly only because it does not take into account management's alarming tendancy to rewrite launch protocols...

Well, time to put this thread back on-topic: It appears that Discovery lost some chunks of foam, but none seem to have seriously implacted the heat shielding (TPS). Some alleged scratches on the wing RCC panels have been identified as bird crap. However, it was announced last night that there is a protruding gap filler under Discovery's right wing, similar to what happened on STS-114. Stay tuned for further details...

Remember, we HAVE to go to the moon first to learn how to make a Mars mission possible. We can't very well spend 50 billion for a manned mission, when we can do it for 500 million over a few more decades...

I am not sure why with the existing technology, it is estimated to cost three times what the initial development/conversion cost was determined to be. Three billion seems a bit much for developing a system for essentially strapping an Apollo-type capsule on a SRB. Of course, I am generalizing, but it really shouldn't be that hard, or cost that much...

I am not all that knowledgeable about such things, but that sounds like a few more than normal, am I right???

You strike me as a good trivial pursuit player I tend to remember tons of useless factoids that serve no other purpose than to make me appear even geekier than I already am...

Hmmm...well that is pretty interesting, cause my information tells me the ISS passed over your area at about 9:41 pm last night, a little less than halfway up in the sky. Unless you have an excellent view of the horizon, you might not get to see ISS until after the 15th. It is supposed to be visible for you about 15 degrees high, about 10:07 tonight... http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/realdata/sigh...n&city=Portland

What major city in OR do you live closest to? I can tell you when you have the best chance to view the station and perhaps Discovery...

Perhaps. Was it a small, non-flashing point of light, moving fairly quickly across the sky? It was probably a satellite...

That's kind of ironic, what you have described above is EXACTLY project Constellation. Except for the wings part...

For one, a craft which has a realistic escape system for the crew during launch. Ideally, one which also wouldn't cost billions of dollars a year to keep in flying shape, as the shuttle is essentially rebuilt after each flight. I really like the new Ares design. Check it on the web...

On that point, Tom, I must humbly offer a correction. I believe there was only one ATO, on 51-F. That was also the flight where the second SSME almost shut down, would have shut down in fact, if not for a manual override initiated by a flight controller. To my knowledge (I haven't looked it up to verify) this remains the only actual infight failure of an engine. It is true that the initial suspected cause of the Challenger accident was a faulty SSME. Once those videos of the flame breaching the o-ring were seen, that immediately was dismissed. In fact, engineers took the two year down period as a chance to do some upgrades on the engines, replacing the powerhead and heat exchanger, and some more powerfull turbopumps...

And, indeed, the 11-point star design of the solid fuel is the reason the thrust can be reduced to pass through the MAX-Q point of ascent. Liquid boosters would have been much better from a propulsion and saftey standpoint, but it was decided not to pursue them due to cost. Those are also the only solid rockets in history to be man-rated, for the simple reason that the thrust is uncontrollable real-time. Even the Soviets, with their greater willingness to take casualties, never man-rated a solid rocket. They'd have to be. And that in itself says volumes about how badly managed the shuttle program has been. Had the SSMEs been properly engineered from the start, they wouldn't need to be completely different engines now. Instead, they still had unexplained failure modes on the shuttle's 60th "operational" flight and beyond. 718528[/snapback] I agree, and that being said it is a friggin miracle there has never been an actual catastrophic failure of and engine in-flight. There was one close call, averted by a resoursfull engineer at Mission Control. Surprising, considering a SSME failure was originially thought to be the most likely cause of a LOV...

I'm as big a superman fan as anyone, and I can tell you it didn't bother me a bit. By they way, I thought the movie was pretty good. I enjoyed it, it didn't bore me and I thought Routh did a great job with the character. I was a bit perplexed by the "super-stalking" bit though...