Blast into Space, Spectacular Fall to Earth {SYTL}
posted by mattoxic on Jul 7, 2009 - 44 comments

Space Shuttle launch aborts. Approximately six minutes of on-pad post-ignition pre-liftoff aborts in a single YouTube link.
posted by loquacious on Jun 8, 2009 - 31 comments

"I said to myself, 'we are going to die.'" Space Shuttle commander Hoot Gibson on his reaction as he saw pictures from the Shuttle's robot arm of gouged and missing tiles along its underbelly. Shades of Columbia - but this was mission STS-27, over fourteen years earlier. Yet mission control discounted the reports from orbit, perhaps misled by the poor quality of the downlinked images that resulted from encryption demanded by the mission's secretive military profile. In the end, Atlantis made it back, but with visible damage along her right flank. But like most classified DoD missions of the time, little was reported, and NASA was arguably wary of drawing attention to the near-loss of only the second flight since the Challenger disaster. But if this near-miss had been better known, might NASA have been more concerned about indications of debris damage during the launch of STS-107?
posted by Major Clanger on Mar 28, 2009 - 28 comments

NASA Interim Problem Report 119V-0080: The bat that went up with the Space Shuttle Discovery.
posted by ardgedee on Mar 18, 2009 - 65 comments

Behold the mundane wonders of the space age. NASA offers a four-part hi-def tour of the International Space Station. [via] Cynical-C [more inside]
posted by awenner on Feb 9, 2009 - 11 comments

The Assembly of Space Shuttle Discovery
posted by grouse on Apr 3, 2008 - 40 comments

A handful of pretty great spacewalk pix from last summer's Endeavour mission.
posted by CunningLinguist on Mar 19, 2008 - 59 comments

Light Reflection: a brilliant fan of cryogenics venting from a relief valve on STS-122 Atlantis' ET (external tank) post-separation. Also see this handheld video of the ET, with money shots at 2:15 and 3:55. [more inside]
posted by brownpau on Feb 21, 2008 - 13 comments

The environment does terrible things to the human body and it smells. Many people go for that walk anyway. [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Feb 10, 2008 - 32 comments

The space shuttle does a back flip while the earth races by underneath. [more inside]
posted by jouke on Feb 10, 2008 - 50 comments

A tour around Discovery STS-120 and the International Space Station with Paolo Nespoli and Dr. Scott Parazynski. Tomorrow, Parazynski will be perched at the end of a robot arm and sensor boom assembly, stitching up a damaged solar array in what might be one of the riskiest EVAs since Skylab 2.
posted by brownpau on Nov 2, 2007 - 29 comments

Some photo galleries (and youtube video) of Buran, the USSR's space shuttle program (previously) from the 1980's, long since abandoned. Bonus: A comparison between Buran and the US space shuttle. Double Bonus: More on Buran from russianspaceweb.com, which is awesome. Combo breaker: An official page with NASA's take on Buran, (and their photos), frozen in time a decade ago.
posted by dersins on Sep 13, 2007 - 25 comments

Space World is a joint project between NASA, Microsoft Live Labs and MSNBC.com. It uses Microsoft Live Labs Photosynth to create 3D tours of the space shuttle Endeavour and NASA's Kennedy Space Center facilities.

(Tech preview, Windows XP SP2 and Vista RC 1, IE 6&7, Firefox 1.5 and 2 only, gotta install Photosynth plugin). Others can see a movie demo.
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Aug 6, 2007 - 41 comments

I hope STS-117 isn't delayed by this train wreck like it was from that hailstorm last March.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot on May 3, 2007 - 24 comments

Space Shuttle Discovery lands. (WMV) Watch for the view from the cockpit.
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Dec 22, 2006 - 38 comments

Are reusable spacecraft history? Tonight's space shuttle launch was spectacular. Watch them while you can; there are only fifteen launches left before NASA retires the shuttle, and with it the concept of reusable spacecraft. Turns out that, despite previous efforts, governments just can't make the original, common-sense idea of reusable spacecraft economically feasible. Leave it to private industry to figure out how.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot on Dec 9, 2006 - 37 comments

Launch of the Space Shuttle as seen from the International Space Station
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Oct 23, 2006 - 47 comments

300 Miles High
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Jul 17, 2006 - 18 comments

Bob Park mourns Triana in his "What's New" newletter: NASA has quietly terminated what may have been its most important science mission. Critics of programs to limit emissions argue that climate change is caused by solar variation, not by atmospheric changes. There is one unambiguous way to tell: locate an observatory at L-1, the neutral-gravity point between Earth and Sun. It would have a continuous view of the sunlit face of Earth in one direction, and the Sun in the other, thus constantly monitoring Earth's albedo. Originally called Triana, the Deep Space Climate Observatory has already been built and is sitting in storage.
posted by 445supermag on Jan 6, 2006 - 23 comments

Discovery is coming home... Around now (6.06am EDT) STS114 is due to commence firing its orbital maneuvering engines for 2 minutes and 42 seconds and commence its entry of the atmosphere to return home to Edwards Air Force base. Florida was declared a "no go" both yesterday and today due to weather conditions.

Weather at Edwards is good. Landing tracks from NASA available here.
BBC story with live video footage is here.
Pilot Jim Kelly is handling the de-orbit burn, according to commentary and mission commander Eileen Collins will make the final approach and touch down at Edwards.

Best of luck, Discovery, I'm sure I speak for all when I say that all of our thoughts are with you.
posted by tomcosgrave on Aug 9, 2005 - 130 comments

Ecological impact of Space Shuttle launch exhaust. Aluminum oxide powder, hydrogen chloride, and of course, water vapor, which can form noctilucent clouds. The environmental impact is supposedly minimal.
posted by brownpau on Aug 6, 2005 - 15 comments

Next to last words from Columbia reentry, at 9 seconds into this -- wma (windows media audio) file at the first link -- very brief. listen to the audio link, first -- just twelve or so seconds long -- and give your brain the chance to hear what it hears. then, see what nasa made of it in the transcript. this and much more can be found at chris valentine's website. the particular page which he discusses this audio file is here but don't miss the movies at his home page. I can agree with Chris Valentine (whose movies are at the same site and much worth watching) that NASA may honestly not hear what he heard -- and I hear -- in this bit of audio. But, as I listen to and watch NASA TV live right now, I notice that every time we start to hear anything at all revealing of plain old humor, or comments about having to reboot Windows again or power cycle when shutdown won't work, or much else, Houston intervenes with "hot mike" and the sound goes away for a while. They micromanage what we get to hear. Valentine's movies have far better video than we see live from NASA too.
posted by hank on Aug 1, 2005 - 44 comments

Liftoff! Discovery is in orbit, and STS-114 is well and fully underway. The fuel sensor problem which had previously delayed the launch was not an issue this morning. Mission timeline, mission updates, and the Wikipedia entry.
posted by brownpau on Jul 26, 2005 - 38 comments

And we thought it was just a load of Soviet propaganda: Buran was pretty sweet Well, no doubt a little bit of industrial espionage helped them in its design, but the Soviet Buran really was an impressive technological achievement and in many ways superior to the United States space shuttle. Of particular interest is the impressive technology the Soviet's developed for heavy-lift boosters. Does anyone know what's become of any of this, or know of any other interesting bits of Soviet -v- American space race trivia? This stuff always fascinates me. (Great website for geeky-cool aerospace information as well)
posted by tgrundke on Sep 26, 2004 - 11 comments

Columbia's Final Minutes A fascinating (if horrifying) account of the shuttle's destruction.
posted by jpoulos on Jan 27, 2004 - 12 comments

"These are good people"...but changes must be made. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board final report was released on Tuesday. Putting technical answers aside for the moment, the report targets the organizational and behavioral issues that led to a breakdown in communication, safety and responsibility. While acknowledging the good will at NASA, the report holds no illusions that changing this culture will be very difficult and very necessary in order to return to flight. What types of management/behavioral obstacles have you encountered in home, work, school or social organizations? How did you try to effect change and what obstacles did you encounter in an effort to make it more effective, safe, productive or enjoyable?
posted by tgrundke on Aug 28, 2003 - 11 comments

Did downsizing and inexperience lead to Columbia's destruction? In the rush to cut costs and 'downsize' NASA in the 1990s the agency outsourced most Space Transportation System (STS, or the Shuttle) functions to a private consortium called United Space Alliance. Now, senior engineers at Boeing (lead member of the USA) are beginning to talk about the lack of experience, 'brain drain', and negative effects of downsizing and privatization. This begs the issue of market imperatives, relative value of privatization and the question of how to better manage projects of this magnitude in a mixed private/public arrangement.
posted by tgrundke on Feb 23, 2003 - 3 comments

"I imagine this is the last we will hear of this." Or not. NASA releases email between NASA engineers leading up to the Columbia disaster documenting significant concerns regarding damage done to the shuttle on takeoff. Engineers calculated the likelihood of a 7" x 30" gouge in the heat shields, but when they let management know of their concerns, they weren't taken seriously, were forced to work "at night" to do simulations, and found that requests for additional information were "treated like the plague."
posted by insomnia_lj on Feb 22, 2003 - 33 comments

Cosmic bolt probed in shuttle disaster - Scientists poring over 'infrasonic' sound waves Federal scientists are looking for evidence that a bolt of electricity in the upper atmosphere might have doomed the space shuttle Columbia as it streaked over California, The Chronicle has learned.
posted by y2karl on Feb 7, 2003 - 29 comments

A short, creepy yarn, and easily dismissed... "The loss of the Columbia space shuttle is suffused with symbols begging for attention. Columbia is named, in part, after Christopher Columbus and symbolically points to the very discovery of the American nation. Strangely, on the threshold of America's preemptive invasion of Iraq to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction, the shuttle's hold contained the first Israeli astronaut who in 1981 himself participated in a preemptive attack on an Iraqi nuclear reactor to eliminate its capacity for developing weapons of mass destruction. An uncanny echo, but certainly not the only one...As we are on the precipice of a war with Iraq, the whole Arab world screams that it is not Iraq but America's relationship with Israel and the Palestinian crisis that is the root cause of all Arab anti-American sentiment and certainly all terrorism. Suddenly the Columbia crashes with an Israeli astronaut over George Bush's home state as debris rains down on "Palestine, Texas."
posted by troutfishing on Feb 6, 2003 - 50 comments

Shuttle "Achille's Hell" According to this article, Shuttle has one. Curiously it's in the area in which that piece of insulation hit during launch.Were the astronauts warned ? Did they do some space walk to see what was wrong ? I would stop my car to go out and see if I heard a loud "thump" coming from somewhere.
posted by elpapacito on Feb 3, 2003 - 38 comments

It's kind of weird how people in East Texas seem to have to "pose" with the debris, like it's a dead deer or a fishing trophy...
posted by sparky on Feb 3, 2003 - 53 comments

Godspeed, Dr. Kalpana Chawla. But how will India replace a girl like you? In Karnal, India, where this fallen Columbia astronaut was born, it is rarer -- and more dangerous -- to be a female fetus than a real live girl space shuttle jock. Statistics suggest that the state has taken the cruel art of sex selection, in which female fetuses are aborted, to new heights. Among children under 6, it has 820 girls for every 1,000 boys according to the 2001 census. (NY Times link)
posted by jellybuzz on Feb 3, 2003 - 19 comments

5...4...3...2...1...Goodbye, Columbia "There is something noteworthy a rocket can do that the shuttle cannot. A rocket can be permitted to fail." Gregg Easterbrook's 1980 Washington Monthly cover story looks into the Columbia's beginnings, the hazards he saw in the shuttle, and its weaknesses compared to rockets.

Once you get into space, you check to see if any tiles are damaged. If enough are, you have a choice between Plan A and Plan B. Plan A is hope they can get a rescue shuttle up in time. Plan B is burn up coming back.

[via Slate]
posted by kirkaracha on Feb 2, 2003 - 32 comments

17 years ago today, the space shuttle Challenger exploded, killing all seven aboard. I share this primarily as I recall this being the first where-were-you-when of my childhood. So where were you?
posted by xmutex on Jan 28, 2003 - 161 comments

Liftoff with the Space Shuttle. NASA attached a small RocketCam to the side of the External Tank on the launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis earlier this month. You can also download the full video.
posted by Mwongozi on Oct 23, 2002 - 3 comments

Photos taken from the space shuttle have revealed what is believed to be a 1.75 million b.p. human-made bridge from India to Sri Lanka. Incredibly, legend says the army of Vanaras (monkeys) built a bridge across the ocean to enable Rama (a Hindu Moses) to conquer Sri Lanka, possibly makeing it a 1.75 million year oral tradition. It is proposed to be a land bridge again.
posted by stbalbach on Oct 20, 2002 - 57 comments

Space Shuttle Atlantis is about to be launched from Cape Canaveral. Watch it live. Blast off at 3:45pm EDT 07/10/02.
posted by JonnyX on Oct 7, 2002 - 16 comments

Walter Mallow dead at 72. Don't know him? He invented clumping cat litter, perfected liquid paper (invented by Bette Nesmith Graham), the heat-resistant tiles on the Space Shuttle, and many other things. Wow.
posted by plinth on Aug 6, 2002 - 16 comments

NASA scavenges on eBay for old parts for Space Shuttle [NYT link-reg req] The Space Shuttle is so old that many of the parts for it are no longer being made. NASA has been reduced to buying old equipment on eBay to scavenge for circuit boards and old CPUs.
posted by geneablogy on May 12, 2002 - 10 comments

My house's windows just rattled from a sonic boom, so that means the space shuttle's home again. I kind of forget about these things until a little visceral something like that brings you back in touch. Int'l Space Station that much closer to completion. Living in the future is cooooool.
posted by logovisual on Jul 24, 2001 - 8 comments

This picture of the Space Shuttle and the ray of "shadow" from the moon is pretty cool. I even think I buy the explanation.
posted by aflakete on Feb 19, 2001 - 15 comments

I'm surprised that none of us thought to post this: January 28 was the 15th anniversary of the Challenger explosion. For most of us Generation Xers, that day was the ultimate "where were you?" event, a moment as defining to our generation as the JFK assassination was to Boomers. Or at least that's what the media wants us to believe. In any case, it affected most people very strongly, and threw a hell of a monkey wrench into the US space program that we're arguably still recovering from. Worse, the shuttle's almost guaranteed to blow up again at some point, due to design problems and the inherent risks of space flight. So where were you on that day? How did it affect you? Do you think the nation was permanently affected?
posted by aaron on Jan 30, 2001 - 65 comments

Which would you rather be, a space shuttle astronaut or a technician on board the International Space Station? I know my answer.
posted by grumblebee on Dec 7, 2000 - 8 comments

The Shuttle Endeavour launched earlier today and thanks to those rocket scientists at NASA, you can see the exact part of the world they are flying over, right now.
posted by mathowie on Feb 11, 2000 - 0 comments

The Space Shuttle team is having problems getting their email. They wouldn't happen to be using Outlook, would they? :) (I didn't intend it, but today is looking to be 'Bash Microsoft Day' here at MetaFilter)
posted by mathowie on Dec 22, 1999 - 2 comments