One last ride for Discovery

[JohnnyBee]

[bobs66440]

Cool pics! 

[myk]

Goddamn heartbreaking if you ask me.  Oh well, I hope some rich ass with more money than he knows what to do with can start up a space program for the human race again...

[BananaDan]

Already underway, started by the guy that gave birth to PayPal and Tesla Motors.

http://www.spacex.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk

[Mike DC]

 

No disrespect to the shuttle program, but it should have ended 15 or 20 years ago.
   

[ChgrSteve67]

Its incrediable to see in person.
I got to see it back in 86 when the 747 with shuttle landed in Texas for refuling.
You would think there is no way that airplane is going to get off the ground with the suttle on its back.

[Indygenerallee]

We need to focus on this planet.... no this country and getting out of this massive financial shit storm we are in now before worrying about space again! 

[bull]

I've always wondered how having one of those shuttles on top of a jet effects the controls. Not that I would know one way or another, since I don't fly, but it's got to mess with things a little.

[Vainglory, Esq.]

I've always wondered how having one of those shuttles on top of a jet effects the controls. Not that I would know one way or another, since I don't fly, but it's got to mess with things a little.

Strap a Honda Civic to the top of your Charger and see it handles on the freeway.

Yep, something like that...

[375instroke]

I've always wondered how having one of those shuttles on top of a jet effects the controls. Not that I would know one way or another, since I don't fly, but it's got to mess with things a little.

It would.  Notice the extra vertical stabilizers on the end of the horizontal stab?

[375instroke]

We need to focus on this planet.... no this country and getting out of this massive financial shit storm we are in now before worrying about space again! 

NASA, everything they do, Hubble, Space Shuttle, Mars rovers, Voyager, Galileo, Cassini, everything, is .1% of the national budget.  You know what percentage is going to the wars?  You know how much went to the banks?  Investing in cutting edge technology and science is our future.  Ignoring that allows other countries to just pass us by.

[Ghoste]

Yep, already paying other countries to launch satellites and probably a btter chance of a space exploration program giving a return on investment than a war (although there are many who could aptly argue that point).

[Mike DC]

  
Adjusted for inflation, I don't think NASA has spent $400 billion total in the last 20 years.



In 2001 Donald Rumsfeld said that the DOD couldn't account for at least 2.3 trillion dollars.  ($8K per citizen.)  They admitted they couldn't account for where 25% of their money was going.  But nobody remembers this now, partly because it was publicized on September 10th, 2001.  The timing was convenient.  

I doubt the DOD has been losing any less money since then.  Not with two wars going on.

 

[Budnicks]

Cool photos, I love all the NASA stuff, I was born in 1959 & raised in the hay day of the Space Age... I know it's considered a big waste of Govt. funds or tax payers money to some people, but lots of advance in technology & military, came out of the space program, their budget is minuscule, compared to some of the many redundant failed &/or failing social programs... It's just my opinion, I'm not trying to start a political discussion...

[Todd Wilson]

Friend on FB posted this pic of it in New York just now.............

[ChgrSteve67]

Thats the Enterprise flying around today.
Scotty beam me up!

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/47204462/ns/technology_and_science-space/