The Last Vovage of the Atlantis

[Red_A]

The Shuttle Atlantis has 11 minute ago lauched on its last planned Voyage

[hh5]

I take its unconfirmed that Trevor and Joel are on-board.

It be scary if Jim and Dirk are in the cargo bay.

[C James]

Atlantis, Trevor's favorite shuttle, and one that has been seen in the story (It was Atlantis's launch that triggered Trevor to try his around-the-world voyage) is on her final mission. Here's a link to a story and video of the launch.

 

In November of this year, the final shuttle flight is scheduled to take place, and after that, the shuttles will fly no more. We are seeing the end of an era.

 

Columbia, Challenger, Atlantis, Discovery, and Endeavor, have written much history in their time. Three survive, but after this year they will be museum pieces, nothing more.

 

There is one remaining unallocated flight-capable external tank, so it is possible that we might see one extra mission, to take place in 2011. I judge it unlikely because the cost would be enormous, but it's possible, and Atlantis would be the most likely candidate (She'll be prepped as the emergency rescue vehicle for Endeavor's flight, so she'd be the most flight-ready.)

 

The follow on to the shuttle program was going to be Constellation, but if the current administration's plan holds, it will be canceled. I've been a fan of NASA all my life, and I dislike the vast majority of Obama's plans, but on this, I think he's right. I've looked into the design of the Ares/Constellation system... it's both horrendously expensive and a technical mess. At best, it would be a capsule, akin to Apollo, with few of the shuttle's capabilities (cargo, in-orbit satellite servicing, etc, etc). It also wouldn't have been ready to fly with a crew until 2018 at the earliest. The much ballihooed recent launch of Ares X-1 was not actually a prototype flight. Ares x-1 was a shuttle SRB with a mock-up of an upper stage and Orion capsule on top. It used not one bit of actual Ares flight hardware. It would have been better named Estes x-1. (Estes is a well-known maker of flyable model rockets). Also, that one jury-rigged launch of a mockup cost 800 million dollars. To put that in perspective, that's more than the entire development and production cost of the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 series from Space X (Falcon 9, which has it's first launch scheduled for later this month, is planned to have, with its "Heavy" derivative, a similar payload capability to what Ares was claimed to have had (and would not have had; they had some major design issues that would have reduced payload). Falcon 9 and the Dragon capsule could return us to flight in three years, far sooner than Ares/Constellation could have done, even had they met their schedules.

 

However, iven if things work out with Falcon9 or one of the other EELV like Delta 4 or Atlas 5 (the tow other contenders for manned commercial launch) or even if Ares/Constellation is resurrected, we will not have the capabilities given to us by the shuttle system. It is unlikely that we will see them again, not within our lifetimes.

 

Voyage well this final time, Atlantis.