Happy Anniversary, Space Shuttle!

[Admin]

Today, thirty years ago, Columbia lifted off, marking the beginning of a new kind of Space Exploration. Today, after thirty years of faithful service and two lost crews, we should stop one moment and ponder at how far the STS program came since then. We have a huge Space Station orbiting Earth, Space Telescopes searching for answers billions of Light Years away from Earth, and thousands of experiments, technologies and scientific material contributing to a better life on Earth, as well as furthering the understanding of space.

So Happy Anniversary Space Shuttle!

/Admin

[EdW]

So say we all !

And a long and happy retirement to the Shuttles . . .  next time I get to New York or Washington i shall be going and saying hello to Enterprise or Discovery for certain...

Ed W
(Manchester - UK)

[Cthulhus]

Happy Anniversary Space Shuttle ! We'll never forget and now we are preparing ourself to a step backwards in the space program...

Thanks STS for all this dreams !

[Pocci]

With all respect to the glorious achievements of the STS, to leave a dead-end street or cul-de-sac you have to either step backwards or to turn around. Staying here would be way too expensive.

Nobody has the money for development of a new system plus correcting the design flaw of the STS.
Having a heat shield at risk of critical damage during launch was not planned by the designers but nobody could find a solution where the current or-biters were inside the concept.
Development, construction and use of the STS brought us so much invaluable knowledge. This knowledge, I am sure, will help us on the next steps into the future of the space program.

Just one example: Guess someone in the future comes up with a design where critical hardware is downstream of a foamed tank. I am pretty sure this time the foamy part will be tested way more including sending it up in full speed test flights.

Had the tank-booster combo been fired just once before investing too much money into the or-biters in their current shape, we would still use Challenger and Columbia but they and the whole STS would probably look different.

/Armin

[Admin]

With all respect to the glorious achievements of the STS,...

...<SNIP>...

/Armin

With all due respect Armin, your post is on the wrong thread.

IMO, your post here is slightly inappropriate. It's like barging in at a birthday party and telling everybody that the one having the birthday is an ugly i...t.

If you want to discuss the faults of the STS program, there are a few threads in the "Real NASA STS missions" board - this one here is a "Happy Birthday" thread, so a simple "Happy Birthday" would have sufficed.

/Admin

[Pocci]

Yea, sorry. I already felt I was posting the wrong stuff.
It just itched me to comment on Cthulhus' "step backward" comment because I think we are going forwards even if not everybody sees it.
OK, Happy Birthday Space Shuttle  and welcome back Admin .

/Armin

[Moonwalker]

Happy Birthday, well, belated

What a breathtaking launch this was back then...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2cKiYULGsc

I think we are going forwards even if not everybody sees it.

/signed

[Forrest White]

SpaceX makes huge progress in building rockets and I hope one day there won't be a need to use Soviet Soyuz rocket for space travel.