Didn't even know the shuttle Atlantis was going up today!

[Oneironaut]

There's about 2 minutes left in the countdown, if anyone wants to watch it on the news.

I'm going to see if I can go catch it on my camera.

[Oneironaut]

Damn. It was too cloudy to see from my house. :(

[Riot Maker]

HOLY CRAP, YOU CANN SEE IT FROM YOUR HOUSE?!?!?!

thats friggen awsome,. im watching it now on cnn. All looks good. (fingers crossed)

I guess the reason why you didn't hear about it is because the emphasis on the political race.

[FreeOne]

ah man i missed it?
:(

[Goldney]

I saw it. Is it me or do all the shuttles lean back when they take off?

[Oneironaut]

HOLY CRAP, YOU CANN SEE IT FROM YOUR HOUSE?!?!?!

I guess the reason why you didn't hear about it is because the emphasis on the political race.


Yeah, I live about 40 (or so) miles from the cape, so it's pretty small, from here, but I can see the booster flames and the smoke trail as it goes up. On a clear night, a can see the boosters falling off. :) I try to go out and watch it as often as I can. One of these days I'm going to take a trip down to the cape and watch it up close. Don't know why I haven't done it yet, actually.

And yeah, that's probably why I haven't heard anything about it. Damn politics. :(

I saw it. Is it me or do all the shuttles lean back when they take off?

Yeah. When they take off, they arc upside down. Once they reach the atmosphere, they do a rollover, and fly head-up. I believe this is so, when they're going up, they can communicate easily with control on the ground and then, when they get past the zero-return point, they flip upward so they can communicate with the space station.

[Ne-yo]

I got a sweet idea. I know how we can get this money! Next shuttle launch I'll come to Florida and hook up with ya and we will get ourselves a boat so we can go out into the Atlantic and retrieve one of the boosters and put it on Ebay, sell it, get paid, before Nasa even figures out what the hell is going on. lol

[Vex Kitten]

I can't believe I knew nothing about this!
Usually I'm on top of space related stuff. I fear I'm losing my grip on my geekatude.

[Oneironaut]

I got a sweet idea. I know how we can get this money! Next shuttle launch I'll come to Florida and hook up with ya and we will get ourselves a boat so we can go out into the Atlantic and retrieve one of the boosters and put it on Ebay, sell it, get paid, before Nasa even figures out what the hell is going on. lol

LOL! Brilliant!!
I'll start gathering up information on their average splash-down coordinates. Haha.

TO THE BATCAVE!! :ninja:

I can't believe I knew nothing about this!
Usually I'm on top of space related stuff. I fear I'm losing my grip on my geekatude.

You'll always be top geek to me, Vex. :hug:

[Goldney]

You need to start visiting "The Geekologie (http://www.geekologie.com/)" Vex Kitten. It's how I keep up to date on all my geeky things.

[Vex Kitten]

Aww, Thanks O, you always know just the right thing to say to make a gal feel special.
:smitten:

Goldney, that is bookmarked and the info is ready to be absorbed into the masses of dorky data stored in my brain. Thank you.
:D

[Goldney]

If you're into gossip and films there are also links to "The Superficial" (gossip) and "I Watch Stuff" (movies). I find The Superficial quite entertaining I have to say.

[cuddleyperson]

Oh yeah i was watching the news and they interrupted it just to sow the shuttle launch, cool how theres cameras on the outside of the shuttle to. I have never watched one before, never been interested. But when i watched it for five minutes i had a kind of sense of awe, like " wow,we did this", kind of thing. It's really amazing what humans have achieved.

[StephenT]

HOLY CRAP, YOU CANN SEE IT FROM YOUR HOUSE?!?!?!

thats friggen awsome,. im watching it now on cnn. All looks good. (fingers crossed)

I guess the reason why you didn't hear about it is because the emphasis on the political race.

If it's very clear, I can kinda see the smoke trail from Texas once it gets way up there!

Damn school. :embarrassed:

[Enzo]

The time I heard about it was two nights ago on 'Nightly News'. They just said it launched, nothing special.

[Riot Maker]

Does anyone know how they determin the names of the spaceships? Is that some guy's day job just picking out sweet names and getting payed big bones for it?

[Oneironaut]

Does anyone know how they determin the names of the spaceships? Is that some guy's day job just picking out sweet names and getting payed big bones for it?

Here is an answer from this (http://www.everything-science.com/sci/Forum/Itemid,82/topic,529.0/wap2,wap2/lang,en) forum, where someone asked that question:


Hi Snazee!

All of the shuttles were named (by NASA committes, I think) after famous oceangoing exploration or science vessels, with the exception of Enterprise. Enterprise, the first orbiter completed, was used in the atmospheric testing for approach and landing. If you aren't familiar with that phase of the program, it was really odd to see the orbiter balloon up off the back of the 747. Looked really dicey to an observer!
Anyway, before the fortunate decision to use exploration/science ships of history as namesakes, the first orbiter was to have been called the Constitution. Fans of the original Star Trek series, however, staged a massive, and ultimately successful, write-in campaign to have OV-101 named Enterprise after everybody's favorite starship. The name Enterprise has been carried by several successful U.S. Navy warships, the most illustrious of which was CV-6, the famous aircraft carrier of World War II. The world's first nuclear powered aircraft carrier CVN-65, carries on the Enterprise name at the present, in addition to OV-101.

Although the orginal plan was to overhaul OV-101 for use as a space-rated orbiter, it was determined that it would be easier and cheaper to convert the ground static test vehicle, OV-099, to a flight vehicle. Enterprise thus was used only as a pathfinder "fit check" orbiter at KSC, and later, at Vandenberg AFB before the west coast launches were cancelled. She is now in storage, awaiting display at the National Air & Space Museum's new facility at Dulles.

The flight orbiters thus became, in order of first spaceflight:

OV-102 Columbia
OV-099 Challenger
OV-103 Discovery
OV-104 Atlantis
OV-105 Endeavour (Challenger's replacement, built using structural spares for major airframe components. An exception to committee naming, a contest was held for members of the public to submit names for OV-105)

I think it is exceptionally cool that two of the Orbiters are named after Captain James Cook's vessels.

Here's a link to the NASA/KSC orbiter info page:


www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/nasafact/orbittoc.htm

Open the dialog box for pages on each orbiter. I find it sad that they no longer list Challenger.

The earlier program names are a little tougher. There were no doubt committee decisions on name assignments, but I don't have any NASA history docs handy on this subject. Mercury was named after the ancient messenger of the gods, Gemini was obvious, with a cue from the celestial twins for the two man spacecraft. Apollo, named after the sun god, always seemed a bit odd to me, but it was chosen at a point when it was nothing more than a conceptual three-man spacecraft - the lunar mission hadn't yet been committed to.

If anybody can shed further light, please do.

Jim

[Riot Maker]

that's awsome, thanks O' that clears it up for me. I think i will still send NASA names that they should use for their next mission's:). Or i can just join the committe;)

[Volcon]

I caught it easly from my house, barley made the countdown though.

[Carôusoul]

I saw it. Is it me or do all the shuttles lean back when they take off?

Have you moved away from england or something?

[Goldney]

I saw it on television.

Praise God for BBC News 24.

[bigfoot]

We still have a space program?

[Oneironaut]

Endeavour is going up tonight (technically tomorrow) at 2:28 AM. I love night-launches. :cooler:

[Seismosaur]

There's about 2 minutes left in the countdown, if anyone wants to watch it on the news.

I'm going to see if I can go catch it on my camera.

Aw crap I missed it and I have a perfect view from my house! :(

[Oneironaut]

Aw crap I missed it and I have a perfect view from my house! :(

That sucks. It was pretty cloudy, though. Dunno how close you are, but I couldn't see it from here, last time.

In any case, lift-off for Endeavour is in less than an hour! :boogie:

[Wavefunction]

I had no idea about this one either.. thanks for the info, O! :)

[Oneironaut]

No problem. :)

[Oneironaut]

Bah, figures that the clouds would be too thick to see anything from the house. She looked good on T.V., though. :cooler:

[Oneironaut]

Another beautiful launch, today. I was trying to find some peoplez to drive out to the Cape with me, so we could see it in person, but everyone was being a buncha punks.

I was gonna just get video of it, from my house, but I almost forgot about it, and couldn't find my camera when the countdown got to 20seconds. Oh well. It was an awesome view, though. Very clear day. There was an airplane that I saw flying not far (from my perspective) from where the shuttle was going up, so I bet the people on board got an amazing view.

[Seismosaur]

I got a video of it :P

[Oneironaut]

"Pics (video, preferably), or it didn't happen!!!11ONEHUNDREDELEVEN!" :P

[Seismosaur]

I'll see if I can get them :P

[Kael Seoras]

!!! I know nothing of these shuttle launchings!

I really need to start wathcing/reading the news -.-