Looks like a soap box derby entry from the over achieving kid that has the engineer dad


it's funny how that date seemed ages away when this all started .. I guess when they press the stop button on their countdown it doesn't affect anything other than the red LEDs in front of them

boy, that thing looks beat up on the front

Sweet picture. It's interesting to see the shuttle like this. Looks so helpless in a way. According to NASA, the shuttle will be decommissioned in 2010. Each Shuttle was designed for a projected lifespan of 100 launches or 10 years of operational life. And Discovery first flew in 1984 I believe. So its nearing its end. I wonder what will come next? Great picture.

Thanks for the iconic tech photo! Upon close inspection it looks a little "rough." Something one might've picked up from the used star cruiser salesthing in Star Wars...
I'll keep this one!

- Mike

It's an excellent capture...But when you look a little closer, you can really see how the orbiter is starting to show its age...I really think it's time to start putting some of the "replacement designs" for the shuttle into action, if you ask me...

good idea...I miss more surroundings of the space shutle...

damn if only they parked it outside my newsagents :~) nice capture indeed, i like the perspective. nice work, ...was lucky to come across this on teh voting booth too. thanx for sharing

It is indeed showing its age. There are no plans to replace the shuttle at all. Nasa's next project is Constellation, the push towards planetary settlement starting with America returning to the moon and using that as a staging post for manned missions to Mars. Constellation is already well under way with contracts already awarded to external suppliers for production of components for the giant heavy lift rockets needed for these missions. The first Constellation flight has been brought forward four years and is now scheduled to launch a year after the scheduled shuttle retirement. The International Space Station is an important part of these plans so in the (increasingly unlikely) event of the shuttle program being unable to complete construction of the ISS, that duty will fall to ESA and their record breaking Arianne ECA rockets and RKA with their Soyuz program.