Space Shuttle Atlantis ends its run of predicting disaster for other NASA shuttles
By Chad Mumm 
posted May 27th 2010 12:44PM
posted May 27th 2010 12:44PM
And then there were two...
After 25 years, 32 successful missions, and more than 120-million miles traveled, space shuttle Atlantis made what's likely to be its last landing yesterday at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Of course, being the astute follower of space tech that you are, you knew this already. But did you also know that Atlantis had an uncanny knack for predicting disaster?
Way back in November of 1985, on just its second mission, Atlantis experienced a blow-back of hot gases past the primary O-rings in one of its solid rocket boosters, resulting in serious erosion of said O-ring. NASA noticed the problem, but didn't recognize the danger -- three months later a similar O-ring failure led to the loss of the Challenger and her crew.
Three years later during STS-27, Atlantis' heat shield sustained severe damage from a piece of insulation that broke off of the right solid rocket booster during launch. Since this was a classified mission for the Department of Defense (you know, to handle super secret military stuff), the shuttle's crew was forced to encrypt the images of the damaged tiles it sent back to NASA, which lowered the resolution of the images enough that the ground crew wrote off the damage as a trick of the light. Looking at the clear images onboard the spacecraft, the crew's commander Robert "Hoot" Gibson was so certain of the damage, he remarked that "we are going to die." Fortunately, Atlantis survived reentry, and the ground crew stared in shock at the missing, cracked, and broken tiles while likely getting a serious dose of "I told you so" from the crew. Years later in 2003, the exact same thing happened to the shuttle Columbia on launch; needless to say, her crew wasn't so lucky.
The second-youngest orbiter, named after the world's longest-serving scientific research vessel (the RV Atlantis), first blasted into space on October 3, 1985 on a military mission for the Department of Defense -- yet again to do secret military stuff. Oh, how the times have changed... its final mission saw Atlantis successfully deliver the Russian Mini-Research Module Rassvet to the ISS. She'll be prepped one last time to stand-by as a rescue ship for the upcoming (and final) missions of Endeavor and Discovery, but Atlantis' days in space are likely over. All gussied up with nowhere to go, Atlantis will finally be laid to rest. And yes, we'll shed a tear or two.
Wow they could have died a few times, not due to the nature of the job but because some people didnt fix the shuttle or even built a new one.. I think foxconn is behind this..Since this dont happen in the US
In junior high I got in trouble for saying N.A.S.A. Stands for Need Another Seven Astronauts, after the Columbia disaster; I was a bitter child..
@VanNorden That is hilarious, and you should feel hilarious.
@VanNorden
I remember the question that asked...
Q - Where did the astronauts of the Space Shuttle Challenger last vacation?
A - All over Florida.
@VanNorden
I also remember learning about how the astronauts all drank Tang because they couldn't get 7UP.
It is sad to see our space exploration days are declining.
@Bugen
If that isn't the truth. It is sad that our "final frontier" has become so boring to people (unless there is a juicy accident of course), when it is still so important. I can only hope whatever replaces these awesome shuttles truly re-inspires people of all ages again..
@Bugen Its sad that they probably keep many secrets from us
@Bugen It's not exploration when you've been going to the same place over and over again for almost 30 years. That's called driving a bus to work. A bus that occasionally kills all of it's occupants.
@Madcat Maybe if they crammed 7 people from new jersey in space shuttle and did a live broadcast of their wacky behavior orbiting the earth, your everyday person would be more interested in space travel.
@Bugen Despite retirement of our space shuttles and progress made by other space upstarts, the US of A is still way ahead of anybody else. Having said that, if we would just cut one carrier battle group there would be enough funding to keep the constellation program going, losing manned launching capability is not an option.
@Bugen
Space travel is not declining. The space shuttles have, however, been prematurely deemed obsolete. NASA is now working on a new spacecraft. The orion project consists of an ARES I rocket with a Orion crew capsule, and a ARES V heavy lifter rocket to carry all cargo. This mission is in the works, with the rockets successful test launches along with successful system tests, leading to the next set of space missions within the next 5-10 years.
@cgs721 sorry cgs but you are wrong. Our president has just announced the CANCELATION of ares and orion. He wants private companies to develop near earth orbit manned capability and set NASA on a path to spend the next 5 years "exploring" how to make a rocket to send men to mars or an asteroid. He is a damned fool.
I'm honestly just excited to see if they'll design a new shuttle that makes our launches feel more "future-y."
@AlexCull have you not heard about NASA's recent budget cuts? a shuttle replacement isn't happening in the foreseeable future.
@maveric101 What budget cuts? The current budget has more money for NASA than in previous years.
The truth is the general public doesn't give a shit. Without the Soviets as the boogie man "flags and footprints" missions are hard to justify. And that is ALL Apollo was.
The government has done a poor job of getting the public excited about space projects.
The recent cancellation of the Ares project was the right decision, made on the advice of the best people in the industry. Ares-1X was a FRAUD and demonstrated no technology relevant to the Ares-1 project. It was a stunt.
Hopefully we'll do better going forward. I'm looking forward to what Space-X and others like them can do. I can't wait to see Falcon-9 and Dragon launch.
@AlexCull We aren't doing shuttles anymore. The budget for research is pretty much shot. We are going back to damn capsules. Obama's hope is that the private sector will eventually step up. We'll see. Some of the early shuttle designs by skunkworks were hard-on inducing.
*salute*
*Pour out a 40*
an end of an era - the shuttle kinda never lived up to its promise of much cheaper space flight.
sad to hear the department of defence practically played a part in the columbia disaster - for any astronaut, it would have been a horrible way to end your life.
i remember seeing on th enews a picture of a burnt out helmet, and just shuddered at the sight :(
Ah, how the mighty have fallen.
Great post, Engadget. I'm really enjoying this new ALT content.
Wake me up when they start building a Constituion-class starship.
@beyondthetech
Sovereign-class for me please
NASA sucks. Have you ever looked at their yearly budget? For 2010, they were appropriated 18.724 BILLION dollars. They are using a large portion of this money to try to further private space exploration. Last time I looked, private space exploration was doing just fine WITHOUT Nasa's meddling. Don't get me wrong, I freaking LOVE space exploration, but, when NASA got out of the business of pure space exploration and into the business of "power grabbing" (As evidenced by the fact that EVERY FREAKING STATE directly benefits from NASA spending) they lost their edge. I understand that the bosses there were fearful of ever having a space-advers administration, but come on, competition is the name of the game... even if it means competing for your own job. I'll hate to see the shuttles go, but part of me thinks it might not be such a bad thing if we see NASA follow. It's be a great thing if we could see NASA come back to its core principles of Space exploration...
Sorry to rant... but I'm REALLY bitter on NASA right now.
@Gr8hifi
Brainwave. NASA spent billions on Ares, just to see it shelved. Instead of spending more on the private sector, they can recuperate losses by auctioning some of their advances and stuff!!! BTW (correct me if im wrong) NASA is still going to an asteroid and Mars in the next 30 years
It's sad that soon more money will gointo the next app phone's development than our space program. Maybe I'll be able to travel to space on the back of an iPhone 18G.
I saw Atlantis launch in late Nov 2009 in Florida. It was a life changing moment to be there in person as a VIP. You have no idea the size of this thing until you stand there next to the mock up. A rear wheel on the orbiter goes right up to the top of my chest and I'm 6 feet tall...three of me standing end to end is about the size of the engine bell on the SRB's. It's a sad day for me to be honest. It was THAT awesome as I felt a connection to it all. Thank you Florida and Nasa for letting me be a part of it if only as a spectator.
The Kenedy Space Centre was such an incredible place to be at that I feel privaleged to have been there. The history is so rich and the achievements are mind boggling. Florida is probably the best place in the USA I have ever been to. The people were all extremely nice. The only thing I won't miss are the endless toll roads...(spread randomly EVERYWHERE, almost like a game of Mario) and the horrible burgers at the KSS food court.
I watched Obama speak at Kennedy and it seems that space exploration is actually taking a different turn. He increased their budget, cancelled Bush's going-back-to-the-moon mission, and said that the goal now is that within 25 years to land on a asteroid and go to Mars. I have been reading about space exploration since I can remember and I'm sure this is just the end of a chapter but the beginning of a new one... the same old shot isn't going to cut it anymore and we're now going to reach further. And I've also read for that past 10 years or so and seen concepts of the next shuttle replacement and apparantly new thrust/engine designs... So I think things will get more interesting from now on.
ROCKETBOOOSTERRAWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRR
@wsansewjs I'm upranking this because that's exactly what I think every time I see a shuttle launch.
@Chad Mumm
Exactly. I just keep saying the RAWR part as long as my breath can hold and the rocket keeps going up into space.
Both the Shuttle and all its lost crew shall be remembered.
This is the first time I've ever heard and read about the STS-27 mission and I was truly dumbfounded after reading that article.
The shuttle is an amazing machine. However, our future space crafts (whatever they turn out to be) must be no where near that fragile. It's still hard to fathom that a piece of foam took out one -- and almost two -- ships in our fleet.
You know part of me hopes that the "real" reason they're retiring these machines cause they have a new secret model/design. They're seriously old and technology has come a long way since. Just that make me wonder what a brand new 2010 Space Shuttle can be like.