Talk:Space Shuttle Endeavour

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[edit] Picture

Could we have a smaller version of this picture? It quite dwarfs the article.  :) -- April

I couldn't find a better source for that same photo (cropping the nose off didn't strike me as photogenic!), so I replaced it with what I think is a prettier one. Note that there are gazillions of NASA-related photos at http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/ . --Brion

I noticed at the Houston Space Center a few months ago that several mission badges had Endeavour spelt Endeavor (for several missions in the 1990s). Anyone know the reasoning for this? You can confirm this by searching the term Endeavor on NASA sites. Simon

Are you sure about this? Jenkins has a few pages of reproductions of the mission patches; the only one for Endeavour where the orbiter's named seems to be STS-49, and it's spelt "Endeavour" on there. Searching on nasa.gov throws up random pages - although quite a few of them - but most seem to be in the context of a misspelling rather than an intentional use of a variant name. (If you're not aware it's spelt "strangely", you'll write it the way you're used to - and even if you are it'll often slip through). I'd bet simply on error. Shimgray 17:08, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
In the Cafeteria they have mission plaques (sp?) for all the shuttle missions, and there is a period of several missions where the name is Endeavor. Is there a way to find pictures of the original mission badges? I think NASA may have gone through many of their pages correcting text; I noticed a lot of pages had Endeavor in the title bar and Endeavour in the article. I'm sure the wing has always had Endeavour on it. I will remove the trivial fact, until I can come up with more evidence. --Csnewton 02:29, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I do still think it's just a typo - a distressingly common one, mind you - rather than a variant name. NASA has press kits online somewhere, with mission patches, but these are all new - the pdfs note they were recreated in ~2001. However, there's also scans of the contemporary Media Resource Kits, one of which I have open in front of me right now, and the patch for STS-49 says "Endeavour"... It's quite possible that the plaques were made by someone who wasn't aware the name was spelt the "foreign" way, and they "corrected" it; I'll pass the query on, though, and see if I can find anything about it. Shimgray 17:22, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Citation

The sentence "The Space Shuttle wasn't designed to retrieve the satellite, however, which created many repair challenges." is a direct quote from http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/shuttleoperations/orbiters/endeavour-info.html. It should either be reworded, removed, or cited properly so as not to be plagiarism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Astrotsarina (talk • contribs) 06:44, 29 December 2005

Not applicable, NASA content is not covered by copyright. --GW_SimulationsUser Page | Talk 19:56, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

In the interest of clarity, I have to voice disagreement with the previous comment. Plagiarism and copyright infringement are two different things. It's still plagiarism if someone else wrote it and it was copied here verbatim without quotation and citation. That's why re-wording it was the right thing to do and why this is often called for here. User:BiOFH --Biofh 02:30, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Reword, or better yet, just plain cite it. SchuminWeb (Talk) 03:21, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NASA

Why are NASA so cheap? Why can't they repair the protective tiles?! If they don't, surely there is an increased danger of it disintegrating in a style similar to Columbia? It's dangerous! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.188.42.83 (talk) 19:34:27, August 19, 2007 (UTC)

They can repair the tiles. There are three repair methods which they could have used. However, analysis and testing showed that it is unlikely that the shuttle will incur any damage by not doing the repair. They decided that doing the repair is more dangerous than not doing the repair, since the EVA required would be somewhat risky. It would require two astronauts to go beneath the shuttle, where it would take longer than usual to return to the airlock in case of emergency, or where they could accidentally bang into the tiles, causing even more damage in the process. Finally, they could botch the repair and end up causing more damage than they fixed. With these reasons in mind, the Mission Management Team decided against repairs. anonymous6494 18:30, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Distance travelled

Space Shuttle Endeavour has flown 19 flights, spent 206.60 days in space, completed 3,259 orbits, and flown 85,072,077 miles (136,910,237 km) in total, as of February 2003.

What does this mean? How is this distance calculated, given that at some point the vehicle leaves Earth's atmosphere and enters orbit, involving a change of context - technically, it was already travelling at 900 miles per hour (0.4 km/s)while on the ground, but at some point we consider it to be "travelling". When does this change take place?

For example, if I am on the ground, I am stationary. If I hover 10m above the ground, then I am still stationary. If I hover a mile above the ground, most people would say that I am still stationary. If, however, I hover 35,786 km above the ground, then I am travelling at 3 km/s in geostationary orbit. When does this change take place? How far up do you have to be to be considered moving as against stationary?

For a spacecraft like the shuttle, you could just measure the distance travelled since take-off, and count the motion gained from the Earth's rotation as a bonus. However, the Earth is travelling around the sun at 30 km/s. A craft that leaves Earth orbit and goes around the sun independently is then considered to be going considerably faster than it was when it was in orbit, even if its movement.

I think the question of "how far has a spacecraft travelled" is about as meaningless as "how long is the coastline of mainland Britain". It all depends how you measure it, there is no "correct" answer.

— PhilHibbs | talk 10:44, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Given the ambiguity of this statement, I think it needs to be framed in a statement such as "NASA has calculated the following approximate flight statistics: ", and it needs a reference as well. — PhilHibbs | talk 09:36, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fifth or Sixth

"Endeavour was the fifth and final NASA space shuttle to be built." Shouldn't it be the sixth shuttle built? (74.169.88.223 (talk) 13:21, 11 March 2008 (UTC))

Well, depends on what the meaning of "is" is... Seriously, though, it depends on what you're trying to say. Endeavour was #6 if you count non-spaceworthy Enterprise, #5 if you don't. SchuminWeb (Talk) 18:08, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Has landed

Can someone update the page to reflect the Space Shuttle Endeavor has successfully landed safe and sound. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.40.138.138 (talk) 00:44, 27 March 2008 (UTC)