Shuttle Discovery flying again NASA TV live
Discussion
Clip on BBC news. They looked great flying over DC past the Washington Memorial. Unfortunately the BBC 'expert' wheeled out to commentate knew as much about the Shuttle as I do about knitting. Apparently Enterprise made it to space in 1979... Oh, and they get very hot on re-entry, which must have worn them out, making retiring them the best plan according to Werner Von Braun on the Beeb.
Simpo Two said:
speedtwelve said:
Oh, and they get very hot on re-entry, which must have worn them out, making retiring them the best plan according to Werner Von Braun on the Beeb.
- who whilst a genius, died in 1977, so hardly the best commentator on the shuttle programme.
It was of a couple of the T38 chase/training planesThe remaining 747 SCA is being scrapped once the orbiters have been delivered to the museums. Can't see why the T38s would be binned as NASA still has plenty astronauts on the books. They'll still be needed for pilot astronaut proficiency and commuting between sites. Trips to ISS will continue with Soyuz and whatever commercial venture US spacecraft comes online as an ISS manned transport in a few years.
Every US spacecraft has had pilots onboard. On Apollo even the non-pilot scientist astronauts were required to be T38 qualified. This requirement was dropped for the shuttle, with only the front-seaters maintaining T38 pilot tickets. The Russians have flown Soyuz missions crewed entirely by professional engineers by comparison. Although both US and Russian spacecraft are flown mainly on autopilot, I suppose the Russians didn't see a need to have a pilot onboard a ballistic capsule as opposed to the US with their hypersonic spaceplane that may require to be hand-flown. It'll be interesting to see if NASA drop their pilot requirement with the return to ballistic spacecraft (I realise that Apollo et al were actually conical lifting bodies that had a slightly variable lift-vector depending on re-entry attitude).
Every US spacecraft has had pilots onboard. On Apollo even the non-pilot scientist astronauts were required to be T38 qualified. This requirement was dropped for the shuttle, with only the front-seaters maintaining T38 pilot tickets. The Russians have flown Soyuz missions crewed entirely by professional engineers by comparison. Although both US and Russian spacecraft are flown mainly on autopilot, I suppose the Russians didn't see a need to have a pilot onboard a ballistic capsule as opposed to the US with their hypersonic spaceplane that may require to be hand-flown. It'll be interesting to see if NASA drop their pilot requirement with the return to ballistic spacecraft (I realise that Apollo et al were actually conical lifting bodies that had a slightly variable lift-vector depending on re-entry attitude).
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