![]() It can support spacewalks or experimental work and land in a fairly sanguine fashion on a runway. "The carrying capacity of this ship, the number of people, the fact that it can be an independent orbiting laboratory or a massive cargo hauler. "It is a vehicle the likes of which we won't see again, for probably decades," said astronaut Mike Barratt in an interview with ABC News from orbit. It would be nice if there is something, we don't know what is coming next with some definite program," he said before flight. Space Shuttle Discovery: Final Flight HomeĪstronaut Al Drew, who went on two spacewalks on this flight, said he understands why the space shuttle era is ending, but he feels the uncertainty. Commercial companies such as SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, Boeing and Lockheed Martin are competing with NASA to design new ships that will launch humans and cargo into space. What is the next-generation spacecraft? Nobody is sure. They are 30 years old fleet, and not capable to going beyond low Earth orbit. The surviving space shuttles - Discovery, Endeavour and Atlantis - are being retired this year. "Nothing else has the capability to carry up those big modules, and the parts needed to keep it functioning, it is truly a remarkable spacecraft." "Without Discovery, and the other space shuttles, we would not have built the space station," said Leroy Cain, NASA's deputy space shuttle program manager, who marveled how a 900,000 plus pound orbiting lab was assembled on orbit, thanks to the space shuttle. ![]() It has flown more times than any other spaceship in history. It assembled the first components of the International Space Station. It carried John Glenn, one of America's first space pioneers, on his sentimental return to space in 1998. ![]() ![]() "I think it really sums up what the space program is about - it is about discovery."ĭiscovery flew both return-to-flight missions after its sister ships, Challenger and Columbia, were lost. "It is kind of cool that the vehicle named Discovery has this kind of history, the most flights," she said in a preflight interview with ABC News. It has gone through 39 sets of landing-gear tires since its first flight in 1984.īut what did Discovery accomplish beyond the numbers? Nicole Stott, one of the astronauts on Discovery's final mission, said Discovery is remarkable. The numbers tell the factual story: 39 missions, 365 days in space, 5,830 orbits of the Earth, 148,221,665 miles traveled. ![]()
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