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Shuttle Launch Success 355

mkosmo writes to tell us NASA is reporting that shuttle launch today was successful. This launch occurred despite the safety warnings from many top NASA officials.
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Shuttle Launch Success

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  • Yeah, but do Russian spaceships have heated seats, air conditioning, all-leather interior, a 16-speaker sound system and all-nozzle drive?
  • Moron (Score:5, Funny)

    by linvir ( 970218 ) * on Tuesday July 04, 2006 @06:50PM (#15657693)
    Until today, I thought trolling/crapflooding was the most pathetic form of internet nerdery. Today I have learned that failing at it is the true low point. I hope that the mysterious inner circle of reject friends gives you a lifetime ban from their secret club for being such a failure.
  • by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2006 @06:57PM (#15657715)
    > watched it live from my front yard in Titusville - the wind was perfect and it was the loudest launch I have heard in a long time - my garage door was rattling for a good 5 or 6 minutes - perfect launch for the 4th of July !!

    As long as Slashdot's a good 4 hours behind the times, let's get this outa the way too.

    --- BEGIN INTERCEPTED TRANSMISSION ---
    "Meh. Running Imperialist Lackey Dogs!
    Their shuttle pales in comparison to the People's Glorious Three-Part Fireworks Display that Dear Leader has orchestrated downrange of Pyongyang!"

    --- END INTERCEPTED TRANSMISSION ---

    Perfect finish to the Fourth, indeed, even if I didn't get to see the Shuttle launch and didn't have a need to know what happened to the non-decoy part of Kim's little fireworks show :)

    Nice try, Kim. No cigar. You still so ronery.

  • by RabidMonkey ( 30447 ) <canadaboy.gmail@com> on Tuesday July 04, 2006 @06:57PM (#15657716) Homepage
    yes, but 'engineerspeed' doesn't really sound as motivational. or as fast.

  • by InfinityWpi ( 175421 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2006 @07:03PM (#15657740)
    I can only imagine the bad-taste jokes that would have happened if there has been an accident.

    "Why doesn't NASA have 4th of July BBQs anymore?"
    "They can't convince any of the astronauts to show up."

    "New from TNT Fireworks: The Discovery! The biggest bang for your bucks! Fits any space-exploration budget!"
  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 04, 2006 @07:06PM (#15657743)
    Every time I go to the grocery store in my piece of **** car, to buy some beer and smokes, I too leave with a thunderous blast and cloud of smoke, rattling my own garage door for 5 minutes... and I'm guaranteed on every trip that at least 5 objects fall off my car as well.

    In fact, everyone knows in my neighborhood I'm about to do a launnch, because I have to run an air compressor to pump up the bald back tires... they gather in lawn chairs to watch and kids on bicycles patrol the streets like F15's to make sure my air space is clear.

    If I tune the radio just right I can pick up Rush Limbaugh, which is as close as I get to mission control.

    Once it caught on fire, and darn near well exploded. I had to pop the hood right quick and jump on there and take a good p*** on the fuel rail which was on fire... took everything I got to put that one out. That was Grocery Trip number 13. I guess it was jinxed by the number. I hear Ron Howards planning on making a movie short about that trip. I had to patch up the fuel rail with some duck tape and used condoms I found behind the back seat.

    You know, buck for buck, I believe the American public gets more drama and excitement out of my car then they do some old space shuttle. With the front end alignment being as shot out as it is, I know it gives me plenty of excitement on the turnpike, jumping all over as it does
  • Kaboom! (Score:3, Funny)

    by ArtfulDodger75 ( 943980 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2006 @07:08PM (#15657749)
    Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth shattering kaboom!
  • by ZeroExistenZ ( 721849 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2006 @07:38PM (#15657812)
    RETURN HOME SAFELY, DISCOVERY!

    Your caps aren't big enough for it to hear/read.
    Maybe try to add bold...

  • by leathered ( 780018 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2006 @07:50PM (#15657841)
    Godspeed, is that even faster than Ludicrous Speed?
  • by jc42 ( 318812 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2006 @08:50PM (#15657980) Homepage Journal
    Some time last year, I saw the same claim made for Windows Vista.

    Of course, since then, they've cut back on major new features. So maybe now it isn't the most complex thing that humans have ever built.

    But there are many ways to define complexity. Someone at MS (or one of their detractors) is probably right now working on a definition that will restore the claim.

  • by Sawopox ( 18730 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2006 @09:05PM (#15658002) Homepage Journal
    was actually two large coolers full of ice-cold PBR [pabstblueribbon.com] left over from the festivities.
  • by Sathias ( 884801 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2006 @09:07PM (#15658004)
    Lets just hope that chunks of Aero Glass foam don't tear off it during the product launch.
  • by Citizen of Earth ( 569446 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2006 @10:00PM (#15658105)
    That's how awe inspiring it is.

    I'd bet NASA could make just as awe-inspiring of a spectacle by lighting fire to a billion one-dollar bills soaked in jet fuel.

  • Re:Must be (Score:5, Funny)

    by east coast ( 590680 ) on Wednesday July 05, 2006 @01:48AM (#15658615)
    It must be a slow slashdot news day. NASA Shuttle has launched hundreds of times before safely.

    It's still more of a news story than Dork-vorak's latest opinion on any random subject or an article about "Is [insert the name of a lame duck technology] dead/obsolete?". How many "news stories" did we have to endure about Bluetooth being a dead technology only to mill through waste-deep comments from pizza delivery boys who talked up how bitchin' their bluetooth mouse is. Not to say that the opinion of a pizza delivery boy isn't just as legitimate as Dvorak's...
  • Re:Kaboom! (Score:2, Funny)

    by isorox ( 205688 ) on Wednesday July 05, 2006 @02:35AM (#15658722) Homepage Journal
    Where's the kaboom

    No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05, 2006 @03:46AM (#15658868)
    What independence are you celebrating?

    You've never seen ID4 [imdb.com] before???
  • by tehcyder ( 746570 ) on Wednesday July 05, 2006 @06:30AM (#15659202) Journal
    Titusville
    That is so close to being a great name.
  • by elrous0 ( 869638 ) * on Wednesday July 05, 2006 @10:03AM (#15659799)
    No the lesson of Return of the Jedi is not to trust the protection of your only shield to a bunch of losers who can't even fight off a bunch of stone-age teddy bears.

    -Eric

  • by DerekLyons ( 302214 ) <fairwater@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday July 05, 2006 @05:25PM (#15663078) Homepage
    No, it can't. Redstone could only launch an astronaut on a very short suborbital hop. A substantially larger rocket is needed to get a human into orbit.

    Ok, so the Redstone's no good anymore. But why scrap Gemini? That was good enough for orbital flight.

    For the same reason most folks scrap their little roadsters when they have kids. Like Gemini, they are cool, sporty, and 'good enough' to get around town in - but that's about it. Once you want to actually *do* anything in orbit, you need docking capability to provide shirtsleeve transfers, you need room for passengers in addition to the pilot and his backup, etc... etc...
     
     
    Why scrap the Saturn? That was good for going to the moon, and it could have "retired" as a heavy-lift cargo vehicle.

    Because there was no need for heavy lift capability - it was too expensive for all but the largest of cargoes, and the largest of cargoes were too expensive for anyone to be interested in building.
     
     
    Even if they didn't have the money to maintain 2 concurrent launch systems, they could have released the plans to private industry, so that these "tried and true" vehicles could be put to commercial use.

    That would have worked - had there been any commercial use for these 'tried and true'[1] system. But there wasnt.
     
    [1] They actually weren't. *Together* the Gemini and Apollo flight hours don't add up to the hours a typical new aircraft gets in the development and testing phase alone.

I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning. -- Plato

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