Shuttle Touchdown
 

Endeavour just landed. Always a cool experience. I love the sonic booms. I live about 35 miles from the Space center and they rock my house every time.:D

Boom(s)? How many?

I was out in Melborne last week and then spent a week in orlando for vaca. We went to the beach right there in the downtown area. Neat area.

Very cool.

I received a NASA launch invitation for STS-125 (the team I led built a lot of the stuff going up on this particular mission)-- so I get to hang out about 3 miles from the pad in some special VIP area when they light it off. :thumbsup:

Being that by popular vote the best "public" offsite launch viewing area is about 12 miles away in Titusville (and by all accounts it's still a great show) being 3 miles away should be awesome. :D

I just hope the launch isn't pushed back, otherwise I may have to fly home and miss it. :(

Still looking forward to checking out the visitors center/museum at KSC and all the stuff around the area.

usually 2 sometimes 3. Here is a vid. although it doesn't do it justice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhBKUFWLU3E

That's pretty cool. You're never going to experience anything like it. 3 miles is about the closest safe distance you can get to. Good luck with that.

I heard they are going to stop shuttle flights soon. Anyone know if that's true and how many missions are left?

Always wanted to see that thing launched. Better make a trip before it's no more.

nothing is ever for sure but the rumor is that the program will either be consolidated or scrubbed in 2010

Correct. Once all the "shuttle deliverable only" ISS parts are on-orbit they will be mothballing the shuttles; hopefully the new Orion program is up and running by then.

Right now STS-133 in April 2010 is tentatively the final shuttle mission. STS-123 is the next one to launch, so you only have about 10 more opportunities to see it launch, not including any extra and/or scrubbed missions.

I'm working on parts for Orion too; lets just say as of the last schedule meeting (300+ slides for a schedule, LOL!) things are just a little bit behind schedule.

Ok, so there's always 2 sonic booms? Why is that? (and is that a dumb question? :_paranoid :lol: )

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives...4921.Eg.r.html

The distinctive double sonic boom heard when the space shuttle lands results because the shuttle is large (at least relative to the other aircraft allowed to travel at supersonic speeds over land.) The text below is taken directly from information available through NASA's Spacelink system (http:// spacelink.nasa.gov) and enter "sonic boom" in the Search box.


"The Cause"
"Sonic booms are created by air pressure. Much like a boat pushes up a bow wave as it travels through the water, a vehicle pushes air molecules aside in such a way they are compressed to the point where shock waves are formed."
"These shock waves form two cones, at the nose as well as at the tail of the vehicle. The shock waves move outward and rearward in all directions and usually extend to the ground. As the shock cones spread across the landscape along the flightpath, they create a continuous sonic boom along the full width of the cone's base. The sharp release of pressure, after the buildup by the shock wave, is heard as the sonic boom."

"The nose and tail shock waves are usually of similar strength. The time interval between the nose and tail shock waves is primarily dependent on the size of the aircraft and its altitude. Most people on the ground cannot distinguish between the two and they are usually heard as a single sonic boom. As the time interval increases, two booms are heard. A small fighter-type aircraft about 50 ft long will generate nose and tail shock waves of less than a tenth of a second (0.1 sec). The ear usually detects these as a single sonic boom."

"The interval between nose and tail shock waves on the Space Shuttles, which are 122 ft long, is about one-half of a second (0.50 sec), making the double boom very distinguishable."

You can access the entire document and much more at NASA Spacelink

Did somebody say ORION??? :D

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...x-P3corion.jpg

Are those Sidewinders and sparrow hanging on that sucker!? Never seen that set up before. That's one heck of a chaff dispenser they've got on the bottom to. That's just crazy ass cool! :thumbsup:

Orion
 

That was a short-lived concept with Aim-9Xs... they were for a perceived air-to-air threat. The others are older SLAM missiles. Those are the cool missiles you see 'driving' into the window of a building. I had the pleasure of spending your tax dollars shooting a few of them at bad guys in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The multitude of holes you see in the back are actually our sonobuoy dispeners. We use them to 'listen' for submarines. The tiny blue things hanging are 500lb cement bombs. No- they aren't for killing cement, they are actually made of cement! Sometimes we drop stuff just to verify our ability to hit what we are aiming for. Crazy concept, eh?

It's an older bird & not very fast, but it's great flying.

I wish I could have seen a Saturn V take off. They say those were the most powerful rockets ever built.

Sometimes the Shuttle lands in California at Edwards AFB when the weather is not good in Florida. And even from my house which is a couple hours away (120 Miles) I can still hear the sonic boom if I remember to listen for it. Not sure if this is still accurate but I was told that the trip back to the Cape in Florida is one million dollars via piggy back ride on a jet liner.

Yeah, they are canning the program in 2010 and replacing it in 2012 with the Constellation program.

Hey Joel, I'm in Melbourne too. Welcome aboard !!

Thanks, good to know someone local. You got a nice project going on there, I wouldn't mind checking it out sometime

Edit: FYI, This is an old thread.

I searched to see if this was already posted, but thought this would be most fitting here. This is the third to last mission and the last for Discovery:
This sounds awesome if you have a subwoofer!


:patriot: :patriot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d8f-Pe_tdo

I think that thre are only like 5 or 6 left Lajes was one of the divert sights and we stayed in the know a little bit.