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Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Space Shuttle Discovery



In honour of the final flight of the Space Shuttle Discovery I have decided to repost some photos of Tamiya's 1/100 scale Space Shuttle.
This saddens and angers me to no end as there is nothing to replace it (except that robot plane) and now American Astronauts are going to be catching rides to the ISS aboard Russian Soyuz craft. Americans were going back to the moon but as far as I can tell not any more.
From Wikipedia"

Space Shuttle Discovery (Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-103) is one of the orbiters in the Space Shuttle fleet of NASA, the space agency of the United States., operating from 1984 until 2011. When first flown in 1984, Discovery became the third operational orbiter, and it made its final landing on 9 March 2011 at 10:57:17 CST, with a cumulative total of one full year (365 days) in space. Discovery has performed both research and International Space Station (ISS) assembly missions.

Two orbiters, Atlantis and Endeavour, remain operational.

The spacecraft takes its name from four British ships of exploration named Discovery, primarily HMS Discovery, one of the ships commanded by Captain James Cook during his third and final major voyage, 1776–1779.

Others include

Discovery was the shuttle that launched the Hubble Space Telescope. The second and third Hubble service missions were also conducted by Discovery. It has also launched the Ulysses probe and three TDRS satellites. Discovery has been chosen twice as the return to flight orbiter, first in 1988 as the return to flight orbiter after the 1986 Challenger disaster, and then for the twin return to flight missions in July 2005 and July 2006 after the 2003 Columbia disaster. Discovery also carried Project Mercury astronaut John Glenn, who was 77 at the time, back into space during STS-95 on October 29, 1998, making him the oldest human being to venture into space.

Had the planned STS-62-A mission from Vandenberg Air Force Base in 1986 for the United States Department of Defense gone ahead, Discovery would have flown it.


Update: Here is a fantastic video from indiegun commemorating the final shuttle mission of Discovery


24 comments:

William said...

Nice model, and a nice homage. And I'm pretty disgusted by this turn of events too. It irks me to think that within my lifetime we've gone from nothing to Apollo to nothing again, and now we'll be thumbing rides on Soyuz. Next they'll decide to cut up the crawlers for scrap and turn the Cape into a Charlie Sheen Theme Park.

Sorry... I'm just a little frustrated. :)

-Warren Zoell said...

As am I William. Try this, ask any teenager who the first person was to step foot on the moon and you'll see why.

Diego said...

certainly timely. Excellent work as usual.

Greetings

-Warren Zoell said...

Gracias Diego - Creo que es triste.

Anonymous said...

I certainly have to agree with you guys. From a mooshot to global warming and Muslim outreach. WTF!
When Obama talks about accomplishments he refers to "a Sputnik moment!". Not a peep about Apollo. Seriously.....get him the fuck out of there.

Sorry......just a lot frustrated. Who the hell is Charlie Sheen anyway?

Dave

Anonymous said...

Yeah Warren. Many teens think the moonshots were faked. I know several. They're hopeless.

Dave

Anonymous said...

I forgot to mention......great model. I got caught up in my rant.
I love the idea of naming one of the shuttles "Enterprise". Too bad it was only a glider.

Dave

-Warren Zoell said...

Dave tell us how you really feel. LOL

Pat Tillett said...

I know a guy who works for NASA up at Vandenberg. He said the Ares rocket system is a totally reliable delivery system(after a bad start) and VERY cheap compared to the shuttle.

As far as the return trip, he's not very happy at all...

-Warren Zoell said...

There was the the Constellation program to go back to the moon with over $ 1,000,000,000 already pumped into it and your President as near as I can tell put the kibosh to it. Opting instead to investigate the fake science of man made global warming and Muslim outreach. As my friend Dave says WTF!!

William said...

Soap box mode on.

I love those "Apollo Hoax" people. I get a good hearty laugh out of them, but then I stop and think "Oh crap, they're SERIOUS, and people actually believe them..." All of a sudden it stops being funny.

I recommend reading Robert Zubrin's book "The Case for Mars", if you haven't already. It's the kind of program we could be doing today - SHOULD be doing today.

But you talk to people these days about Apollo and they say "I've never heard of that app; will it run on my iPhone?"

GRRRR.

Soap box mode off.

-Warren Zoell said...

Ever see Capricorn One?

Anonymous said...

Yes. I have seen Capricorn 1. You need to turn off your filters and suspend your disbelief to get through it. It's kind of a fun movie but lot's of ridiculous movies are. How about Syriana?

Dave

-Warren Zoell said...

No I haven't but I've heard about it.
Isn't that a movie about oil company conspiracies in the middle east or something?

Anonymous said...

Nice model of Discovery. I found your page because I'm currently working on a Lindeberg 1/200 scale Discovery plastic kit. Also, I made a nice (I think) video in honor of Discovery's long service in the fleet. It's gotten some favorable reviews and great comments. I'm going to miss that bird. If you wanna see the vid paste the following after youtube's dot com: /watch?v=Qj5tHzcMe0g

-Warren Zoell said...

Thanks Anonymous - Unfortunately I can't watch you video, bad link or something.

Anonymous said...

Sorry about that - it appears that the backslash is already after the dot com. Pasting my link makes two of them. If you delete my backslash the link should work fine. When I get close to painting my model do you think I could fire a couple of questions your way?

-thanks

-Warren Zoell said...

Absolutely - Anything I can do to help.
I still can't access your video.
I would recommend that you go to your Youtube video, copy the link on the address bar and re paste it here.

Anonymous said...

Not sure why it won't work for you. Here is the direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj5tHzcMe0g

If that still does not work you can just go to youtube and search for 'indiegun shuttle' (indiegun is my yt username). That should bring up my Discovery video.

thanks bro...

-Warren Zoell said...

Wow!! very well done indeed!! And very professionally done.A fitting tribute. If I may I would like to put it on this post.

Unknown said...

Thanks so much Warren! I'd be honored if you would post the video. I have a new one in my editor now that I think you'll like as well. It is a high quality audio launch of Discovery's STS-121 (no music). The idea is to give the viewer some sense of what it would be like to see a launch in person. Of course you would have to have a good audio system (with subwoofer) to get the full effect. I must say it rumbles my house when I'm working on it! I'll drop you a line when it's posted.

-Warren Zoell said...

That would be great tanks. I can't wait to see it.

Unknown said...

Will do. Man, I'm going to have to spend a lot more time on your site. Your models are fantastic! Thanks for posting the video as well. I'll be sure and let you know when the new one is up.

-Warren Zoell said...

Thanks mb