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Hey as I suggested before if we had a news section I'd have somewhere to put this!

The Space Shuttle Discovery landed safely at Edwards Airforce Base in California at dawn yesterday.

I watch the live footage of the shuttle de-orbiting - wow how cool was that!

It was nerve wracking stuff after the Columbia disaster 2 and a half years ago when all 7 crew members were lost as the shuttle boke up on re-entry.

They say the shuttles will be retired ni 2010, but what next? Manned mission to Mars is on the cards.

Watching the space walk to the under belly of the shuttle for repairs was breath taking. I've always been fascinated by space travel. Feel a bit sorry for the guys on the International Space Station though, just kinda floating around up there.

Beam me up Scotty!!!

Manned mission to Mars is unlikely to happen in our lifetime - well maybe by 2050 (I'll be in my seventies and even eighties... YIKES!!). The cost is astronomical and we are not yet 100% certain of the effects of long term exposure to zero grav in humans yet. NASA is cash strapped and the US congress doesn't have the will to finance NASA any more than it does right now - in fact it reduces funding almost yearly!!

Mouthballing the shuttle fleet is a good idea. As long as we still have this fleet, we basically remain reliant on 1970s technology dreamed up in the late 1960s (thats archaic guys). Once we mothball the fleet we can think of our next move.

Japanese scientists are looking in a small (read microscopic) type of new energy source based on fusion power. In theory it would provide for a non-exhaustive source of power and can be used to power everything from electricity generators, to cars, to heavy machinery and yet even a new breed of space vehicles. Fusion would allow for unlimited power, providing we can design a recepticle capable enough of converting the fusion energy into usable power - thus in theory we could get unlimited speed from such engines...

But I am now going off and far away with this post... I now have an idea!!!!!! EUREKA! A science forum!!!

Ah you see!

Well apparently they want to return to the old capsule idea, which is launch on top of a rocket, forget what they called it, something vehicle. Only thing is the shuttle has been so useful because of its size and the amount of payload it can carry.

But an update is seriously needed, I think after Discovery's mission people are once again interested, although it was always slated as a test flight and they still have loads of problems to sort, but the amount of data and knowledge they got from the new tests was incredible.

Some people still like the idea of a space elevator where you literally have a fixed cable going from earth to the space station or docking port in orbit and you go up in a capsule which runs along the cable. It's not impossible but the technology is not there yet.

Do you realise it's nearly 40 years since man first walked on the moon? Amazing!

Chocoholic wrote:
Do you realise it's nearly 40 years since man first walked on the moon? Amazing!

The people which follow conspiracy theories make me laugh when they say that the moon walks where nothing more than staged in a movie studio...

They claim that the US government staged them in order to deflect attention away from their crazy a$$ losses during the Vietnam war that went on concurrently...

It is logical and plausible, but I don't quite buy it...

hahahaha

Did you ever see the movie Capricorn 1? They did exactly that!

Never heard of it... The movie was about the conspiracy theory?

Hmmm.... you tweaked my interest. This Capricorn 1, what year was it made and who were the main actors (if you recall), would help me find it better to "rent it"....

Hey,

The movie is actually about a faked mission to Mars, but I guess the theories are the same.

The movie was made in 1978, log onto www.imdb.com

It's THE info website for movies, just type in the movie name and the complete cast list, synopsis etc is there for you, I love this website, it's brilliant for movie info and run by those in the business.

You're going to be stuck on it for hours now aren't you?

Chocoholic wrote:
You're going to be stuck on it for hours now aren't you?

Yes. Yes I am.

good to see u2 getting along

It was a minor misunderstanding.... We settled our differences through the power of PMs

Chocoholic is a reallty nice person.... Unfortunatly sometimes a message someone tries to send accross the forums get misinterpreted... Thats the problem of non face to face communication, alot gets lost in the "translation" (for lack of a better description) No biggy

Go go dubaiforums!

i say thanx to the successfull shuttle landing !!!! hahahahaha

Hey!!!!!!

We went to the moon.

Were going to Mars.

We kick ass!!!!!