Nasa'S Space Shuttle Discovery Makes Final Flight To Museum

[News_Editor]

NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery makes final flight to museum 2012-04-18 09:41:32 GMT+7 (ICT) CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA (BNO NEWS) -- NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery went on its final voyage on Tuesday, a piggy-back ride on top of a modified Boeing 747 carrier jet from Cape Canaveral in Florida to an airport near the nation's capital.Discovery, which flew a record 39 space missions during its 26-year-long career, took off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop NASA's Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) at around 7 a.m. EDT and landed at Washington Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Virginia at 11:05 a.m. EDT. "It is an honor to deliver Discovery to the Smithsonian today to share this national treasure with the nation -- telling not only the stories of the past, but ushering in the promise of the future," said NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver after Discovery landed at Dulles.The shuttle's last stop is the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, where it will be permanently relocated on Thursday morning. The museum will celebrate Discovery's arrival with a four-day festival, which includes appearances by Discovery crew members, other NASA astronauts, and U.S. officials.The aircraft which carried Discovery to Virginia on Tuesday, designated NASA 905, is the same one which first delivered the spacecraft to the Kennedy Space Center on November 9, 1983. The aircraft is one of two modified Boeing 747 jets which NASA has used to ferry orbiters during the Space Shuttle Program.Discovery's 26-year spaceflight career began on August 30, 1984, when it carried six astronauts into orbit on the STS-41D mission. Since then, it has flown 148 million miles (238 million kilometers) and carried 246 crew members into orbit. In total, it spent one year or 365 days in space with 5,830 orbits.Among the many milestones during Discovery's lengthy career, the Hubble Space Telescope was deployed from the space shuttle's payload bay. The spacecraft also completed the first space shuttle rendezvous and the final shuttle docking with the Russian space station Mir. The STS-133 mission to the ISS space station was Discovery's final spaceflight. Led by Commander Steve Lindsey, the six-person shuttle crew delivered the Permanent Multipurpose Module, offering extra room for science tasks and storage, and Robonaut 2, a humanoid robotic helper. On March 9, 2011, Discovery's main landing gear touched down for the last time on Kennedy's Runway 15.Discovery's 60-foot-long (18.2 meters) payload bay doors were closed for the last time in December last year, and the crew module went dark as technicians permanently powered down the vehicle. An aerodynamic tail cone was fastened over the orbiter's main engines shortly after, and the crew access hatch was closed and sealed."The space shuttles' 30-year history literally changed the world. Their greatest accomplishment and purpose, now complete, was the launch and construction of the ISS -- our science laboratory in space and our foothold to the rest of the solar system," Garver said on Tuesday. "Like all great accomplishments, these achievements came at a cost. When we lost the Challenger and Columbia flights and their brave crews, we re-dedicated ourselves to an even more meaningful and exciting future."The space shuttle program ended last year to allow NASA to begin working on a new generation of spaceships which can carry astronauts further into space. "It will allow us to more fully utilize the ISS and explore farther than ever before -- to an asteroid and on to Mars," Garver said. "Vehicles with names like Orion, Dragon and Dreamchaser are being built all across the country today. They will continue and expand on the space shuttle's many accomplishments."

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2012-04-18

[thaibeachlovers]

In the future, the failure of the US government to build a replacement "shuttle" will surely be seen as a monumental mistake, which it is.

Kennedy provided the nation with a vision of the future to strive for. The current administration is just trying to manage a decline from greatness without getting the boot.

[Ricardo]

Flew 148 million miles, and still didn't find any aliens !

[flying]

Kennedy provided the nation with a vision of the future to strive for.

Yes it is sad that things like this are cut while so many truly wasteful things remain

Money spent exploring space or even the depths of our oceans are investments with real returns.