Shuttle liftoff

[FireFox]

I saw the shuttle take off once from across the bay....I was 6 at the time. It's awesome.....just the fierce power of the thing....yep...it's something you don't forget easily.

Anyway, I heard that pieces of insulation did break off, but when they did break off the shuttle was already too far up in the atmosphere for the insulation to do any damage....do you know what that tells me? It tells me that they got lucky.

 

[HAVOC]

0 to 600 MPH in 2.9 seconds... whoa! They orbit at about 31,000 MPH.

I wanna go to the international space station... That would be sweet.

 

[Trotter]

I listened to the whole thing for several minutes. The last speed update they gave was something like 4 miles per second.

It was wild... hitting 3200 MPH... 4500 mph... 7000 mph.

The video feed kept up until the external fuel tank was cut loose (the camera was on the tank). Definately worth taking the time for.

 

[aliasaid]

virgin airlines is gonna start commercial flights to space in the year...2010? i forget the date.. but its real soon.. maybe a bit after 2010

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

There are several private companys allready trying to start up a private space flight program, but they don't go into space, they only go to the edge, where you feel the 0 gravity.... They wont be going far enough out so you can see the entire planet as a whole...

 

[PP Mguire]

Space amazes me. I always wanted to be an astronaut.

 

[molsen]

i was freaking nervous as **** watching the liftoff. i didn't want the astronauts to die and i didn't want our space program to grind to a hault

 

[DefragMyHead]

virgin airlines is gonna start commercial flights to space in the year...2010? i forget the date.. but its real soon.. maybe a bit after 2010

Im pretty sure the trailblazers of the space tourism industry will be strictly sub-orbital in the beginning, and probably for some time afterwards.

 

[Waphlez]

Yea I wanted to be an astronaut as a little kid, but at that time you don't think about how dangerous it actually is doing a space flight. Kids don't think much about death thats why I know a lot of little boys that say they want to be a soldier, pyrotechnician job (or what they call: the firework guy), firefighter, etc which are all dangerous jobs.

I missed the launch, and I'm kind of dissapointed but o well, at least they're safe.

 

[PP Mguire]

Think about death? Oh i knew about it then, and still want to now. It still amazes me but i know ill never be able to.