STS-133/Discovery

Beeker

MoonDancer wrote: »

Wow this is amazing, I missed the inital undocking tho:(

Never fear:)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsdnAqx9HM4

MoonDancer

Beeker, make us all jealous, do you have this on the big screen again???

MoonDancer

Whoa!! You are deadly! Thanks a million!!!

Beeker

MoonDancer wrote: »

Beeker, make us all jealous, do you have this on the big screen again???

Sure do, with a big mug of tea right in front of me!:)

Beeker

lord lucan

clln

You's here them say station cameras cant find Discoverybecause ISS is so large now?

Shuttle 725 feet away from station now.

Beeker

Almost halfway through the flyaround now.

clln

Beeker wrote: »

Sure do, with a big mug of tea right in front of me!:)

not forgetting your ugly mug in space,and the beautiful Mrs Beeker who does not even know she is there too!:pac:

lord lucan

Beeker

I love it, what a sight! Beautiful to see:)

lord lucan

Beeker

clln wrote: »

not forgetting your ugly mug in space,and the beautiful Mrs Beeker who does not even know she is there too!:pac:

:D:D

Beeker

lord lucan

She looks gorgeous.:o

Beeker

Over the atlantic approaching Africa

lord lucan

Beeker

Over the Sahara desert

clln

nice shot of the arm with camera at tip that will check the Thermal Protction System later today.

Beeker

lord lucan

Beeker

This is stunning, fantastic video:) Crossing Italy now.

CO19

What a sight from the camera's ! Why does it need to 'fly around' ? might seem like a stupid question but why can't it just fly straight back down to where it's going to land without having to do all this ?

lord lucan

Beeker

clln

CO19 wrote: »

What a sight from the camera's ! Why does it need to 'fly around' ? might seem like a stupid question but why can't it just fly straight back down to where it's going to land without having to do all this ?

They take pics of the entire ISS for study back on Earth,test for any signs of structural decay.
welcome again CO19!:)

Beeker

CO19 wrote: »

What a sight from the camera's ! Why does it need to 'fly around' ? might seem like a stupid question but why can't it just fly straight back down to where it's going to land without having to do all this ?

The flyaround is done to allow the opportunity to document through video and photos the current state of the station after new parts have been added. They will now seperate and the shuttle crew will store away loose items on board conduct a final inspection on the tile system and test the systems for reentry and landing. This take a day or two so Discovery will land on Wednesday.

CO19

Beeker wrote: »

They will now seperate and the shuttle crew will store away loose items on board conduct a final inspection on the tile system and test the systems for reentry and landing. This take a day or two so Discovery will land on Wednesday.

Thanks you'd think they'd do all that while it's docked to the station and not when they're about to go back into the earth,least if they discovered something wrong they could fix it while docked.

clln

Beeker thank God sagan for such good KU;)
thought you might be interested that Patrick Moore now well into his eighties chose the pale blue dot as his favourite picture of all time and he has seen some photo's in his life.

700th show to be repeated at 7.30 PM Tuesday on BBC4 if you can get that channel.

that flyaround was spiritual experiance for me.........i am lost for superlatives.

Beeker

CO19 wrote: »

Thanks you'd think they'd do all that while it's docked to the station and not when they're about to go back into the earth,least if they discovered something wrong they could fix it while docked.

Well they do inspect the tiles before docking, which allows them the chance to repair is needed. The final inspection is done as a extra safety check to ensure they missed nothing. Most to the storage can only be done at the jast minute as it is items they are still using like laptops , cameras etc...

Beeker

Flyaround complete and now they seperate

clln

CO19 wrote: »

Thanks you'd think they'd do all that while it's docked to the station and not when they're about to go back into the earth,least if they discovered something wrong they could fix it while docked.

They test while they can still re-dock if a tile or the carbon on the wing edge was found to be damaged.

they test after undocking for fear the arm might damage the station while inspecting the shuttle.

Beeker

clln wrote: »

Beeker thank God sagan for such good KU;)
thought you might be interested that Patrick Moore now well into his eighties chose the pale blue dot as his favourite picture of all time and he has seen some photo's in his life.

700th show to be repeated at 7.30 PM Tuesday on BBC4 if you can get that channel.

that flyaround was spiritual experiance for me.........i am lost for superlatives.

Thanks clln, I must watch that Tuesday:) Pale Blue Dot is one of my favourite photos also.
Like yourself it is also a spiritual experience for me.:)

gbee

lord lucan

lord lucan wrote: »

The wake up song this morning was the Star Trek Original Soundtrack but with a twist. They got William Shatner to re-record the opening monologue("Space,the final frontier etc. etc.") and replaced Enterprise with Discovery. Here's how it read:

"Space, the final frontier. These have been the voyages of the Space Shuttle Discovery. Her 30-year mission: To seek out new science. To build new outposts. To bring nations together on the final frontier. To boldly go, and do, what no spacecraft has done before."

I'm not a Star Trek fan but gotta admit that was pretty cool.:)

And here's the aforementioned wake up call.:D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNyz35TFYW4

clln

lord lucan wrote: »

And here's the aforementioned wake up call.:D

It would melt a heart of stone LL.

here is the current weather forecast for Wednesday from Spaceflight now.

The early weather forecast for the Kennedy Space Center calls for acceptable conditions at the landing site. The outlook includes scattered clouds at 3,000 and 20,000 feet, seven miles of visibility, southeasterly winds from 120 degrees of 15 peaking to 21 knots.

Here is MR M T Cranium's forecast which he sent me by PM overnight.used with his full permission.
i had hoped he would post on this thread for some competition to Kathy Winters just for a bit of craic.

Thanks for the kind words, I had a look at the landing situation weather and it looks fine in Florida on Wednesday, however, I'm not very familiar with the conditions they need to have for the glide back into the upper atmosphere and there is a front about 400 miles west of the KSC that would have thunderstorms reaching 35,000 ft. Seems to me they would be much higher than that around that location, so I would expect they will land in Florida. The west coast weather meanwhile also looks fairly good on the Thursday.
You can quote whatever part of that you want in the astronomy thread. == MTC

sorry LL but it is looking good at the mo.i know wed/Thur is bad you.:o

clln

There she is the big Diva, checking herself all over,making sure she looks her best for her admiring fans when she lands:)







Mission control telling her she looks beautiful........... but she is insisting on a spacewalk to get her hair just right and her nails done :pac:

Discovery is right at the point in the timeline it should be today.

the urine dump earlier was perceived as UFO's by the chatters on USTREAM,they are adamant about it......... expect big increase in CTs by the Constellation NIT-WITS!:D

lord lucan

Here's the wake up call put to some stunning footage of STS-133 by NASA and was running on the public channel a while ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH1s7jBWKSY

lord lucan

clln wrote: »

sorry LL but it is looking good at the mo.i know wed/Thur is bad you.:o

Ah well,guess i'll have to hide in the jacks and watch it on my phone.;)

Beeker

lord lucan wrote: »

Here's the wake up call put to some stunning footage of STS-133 by NASA and was running on the public channel a while ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH1s7jBWKSY

Great stuff:)

eilejh

How horrible that is! Talking only about the music...I hope that is a joke by Double L ha ha.

Beeker

lord lucan wrote: »

Ah well,guess i'll have to hide in the jacks and watch it on my phone.;)

Good man, a man after my own heart. Go anywhere, do anything, whatever it takes to follow the Shuttle:D

Theres a few of you here that could power the shuttle on enthuasiasm alone:)

Love it.

lord lucan

Beeker wrote: »

Good man, a man after my own heart. Go anywhere, do anything, whatever it takes to follow the Shuttle:D

Especially with so little time left in he programme,every precious moment counts.

lord lucan

Jake1 wrote: »

Theres a few of you here that could power the shuttle on enthuasiasm alone:)

Love it.

Have a look for us in the Bereavement forum after the summer.:(

Hauk

lord lucan wrote: »

Have a look for us in the Bereavement forum after the summer.:(

Definitely.

savagecabbages

There have been space shuttle missions since before I was born I'll certainly miss Discovery, along with her sister ships (ships right?!?) after they are gone....

One question that came to mind on reading that there were 39 missions, how much is left of the shuttle which first flew in 1984? I understand the shuttle fleet undergoes an extensive overhaul between missions, something which those against the use of a re-usable craft used highlight because of its high cost.

Is the original airframe actually still intact?

clln

When something is so awesome words fail you....................12 minutes of bliss!!!!!

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=69829481

CO19

So it looks like we're not going to get to see the shuttle fly over Ireland anyway from the looks of things here http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/view.cgi?country=Ireland&region=None&city=Dublin ,first time I've ever seen a full week of no sightings at all.

Overature

savagecabbages wrote: »

There have been space shuttle missions since before I was born I'll certainly miss Discovery, along with her sister ships (ships right?!?) after they are gone....

One question that came to mind on reading that there were 39 missions, how much is left of the shuttle which first flew in 1984? I understand the shuttle fleet undergoes an extensive overhaul between missions, something which those against the use of a re-usable craft used highlight because of its high cost.

Is the original airframe actually still intact?

her sister ships are Atlantis and Endeavour, the shuttles have been in use since 1981, 30 years or so and in that period tecnology will have advanced a whole lot, especially the computers systems. id say that at least 90% of Discovery has been changed/replaced over the years though i dont know for sure