Shuttle Endeavour in the air for the last time

[AE1PT]

The last of the shuttles finally finds a home. Endeavour will be housed at the California Science Center in LA.

A hundred years from now I wonder how people will perceive these birds...

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/21/us/endeavour-last-trip/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

[PA5COR]

Saw the piccies too, the end of an very nice era.....

[W3WN]

Too bad there's no birds in the pipeline to replace them. Hopefully private enterprise will be able to step in and do what the politicians and bureaucrats have prevented NASA from doing...

[n2ize]

Private industry will do it if there is an ROI. But they're not going to send anyone into space just for the heck of it. On the other hand space exploration continues...

[N8YX]

Some day we're going to have to find a way off this rock. Hopefully not 6 months before a Chicxulub-scale or larger NEO is discovered to have Earth at the center of its cosmic crosshairs, either.

[K7SGJ]

And this was a very nice touch, too.


http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2012/09/20/20120920PNI0920-wir-shuttle-endeavor-tucson-new-home-kelly-giffords-california.html

[n2ize]

Some day we're going to have to find a way off this rock. Hopefully not 6 months before a Chicxulub-scale or larger NEO is discovered to have Earth at the center of its cosmic crosshairs, either.
Then the best thing we can do at this point is to send lots of unmanned probes and space telescopes up to try and find a habitable planet.. Right now our solar system doesn't seem to harbour any planets that are any good for sustaining human life. Even Mars is extremely hostile to human life and to sustain human life would require having to live under artificial life support for however long it could be maintained. If I had a choice of having to live out the rest of my life on Mars or getting zapped by an asteroid here on earth I would chose the latter. For now we simply have to accept the fact that the human species may someday fall into extinction while we search the heavens for a new rock...

[NQ6U]

For now we simply have to accept the fact that the human species may someday fall into extinction

Sometimes I wonder if that would be such a very bad thing.

[PA5COR]

For the earth not such a bad thing, for us mortals it is...

[KC2UGV]

Then the best thing we can do at this point is to send lots of unmanned probes and space telescopes up to try and find a habitable planet.. Right now our solar system doesn't seem to harbour any planets that are any good for sustaining human life. Even Mars is extremely hostile to human life and to sustain human life would require having to live under artificial life support for however long it could be maintained. If I had a choice of having to live out the rest of my life on Mars or getting zapped by an asteroid here on earth I would chose the latter. For now we simply have to accept the fact that the human species may someday fall into extinction while we search the heavens for a new rock...

There are no habitable planets in our solar system, which is why we need to start colonizing other planets in our solar system; to either teraform them (Which at our current technology level, would take a century, at least), or to figure out a way to live on them.

There's many reasons for this: Huge assed impact object, inbound. Lower gravity on other planets, which facilitates launches (Majority of launch weight is fuel to break gravity). Etc etc.

We need to start now, not 100 years from now when we have 6 hours to impact.

[kf0rt]

Cool stuff, though it's tough to see the Shuttle ride into museums. Old tech these days, but I'd rather see funding for NASA than the latest bullshit wars to kill people over religious disbelief.

Hang a bit in some photo forums, too. Here's some pretty cool shots taken during the fly-over in Houston:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1034&thread=42541566

Click on the pics to enlarge.

[n2ize]

There are no habitable planets in our solar system, which is why we need to start colonizing other planets in our solar system; to either teraform them (Which at our current technology level, would take a century, at least), or to figure out a way to live on them.


There's many reasons for this: Huge assed impact object, inbound. Lower gravity on other planets, which facilitates launches (Majority of launch weight is fuel to break gravity). Etc etc.

We need to start now, not 100 years from now when we have 6 hours to impact.

Yeah, I've heard the ideas on "terraforming" and "colonizing"and frankly I am not very convinced we will transform them into anything anywhere near habitable in 1000 years let alone 100 years. Mars is probably our best bet and even if we could "terraform" Mars into something remotely habitable in a century or two centuries it would still be very undesirable and rather hostile to human life, assuming "terraforming" works at all. Good luck terraforming Venus at >850 deg F and a dense sulphur dioxide atmosphere at 100x the pressure of the earth. Even mars, the most likiely candidate for terraformed is estimated will require several centuries to become habitable without life support would require several centuries, and then some. Assuming it worls at all and assuming it won't be a living hell... Maybe a good place to put politicians and the most vile criminals... :snicker:

Far as other planets go it is highly unlikely we will ever "terraform" them into anything even remotely habitable nor is it likely we will mutate humans into something that can live under the extremely hostile conditions of those planets. Heck, we can barely survive in the arctic, antarctic, or our hottest deserts. Good luck trying it on a planet that is 1000x more severe. Good luck on planets that rain hurricanes of sulphuric acid or that have thin frozen atmospheres with almost no water or extremely dense atmospheres with all the wrong kinds of vapours and gases that would corrode and destroy us in a heartbeat. Not to mention bitter cold that would freeze us solid or heat that would roast the crap pout of us. And even if we could make a place like Mars even remotely habitable I am still not quite sure I would want to live there. It looks like a dismal hell hole to me. I would rather die than have to spend the rest of my live in a place like that living in some barracks under artificial life support. I'll take my chances here. If I die I die. Even if we could "terraform" these planets into something habitable (highly unlikely) it would be a massive undertaking to transport even a tiny fraction of the earths population to some miserable and highly unpleasant chunk of rock floating round the sun.

Best we can do is search the universe for a place like earth and hope it is not already inhabited. best way to go about it is to step up exploration of the universe as we are and hope we come across a suitable planet that can be reached.


We need to start now, not 100 years from now when we have 6 hours to impact.

We can;t even provide jobs for our people here on earth or stop killing each other or take goood care of what we got. What makes us think we are going to pour billions of dollars to 'colonize" some hell hole rock in space and manage there ?? Our own ignorance and arrogance and pure greed will drive us into extinction long before any mass comes colliding in from the heavens.

[NQ6U]

http://resources1.news.com.au/images/2012/09/22/1226479/240377-shuttle-endeavour.jpg

[n2ize]

heck, the only shuttle I've ever seen is this one. Even got ta ride it a few times

http://farm1.staticflickr.com/183/434296322_eb36241e54.jpg