11:26am- still looking like a go.
 

T-31 minutes.

Anybody else watching?

http://mashable.com/2011/07/08/shutt...tlantis-video/

End of an era. Last shuttle launch in 40 mins
 

Sad day.

You can watch it live in HD:
http://mashable.com/2011/07/08/shutt...tlantis-video/

LOL, Joe feel free to merge our threads or delete my other one or whatever.

Note that's T-31 to the end of the last scheduled hold. ;)

Yeah, sad indeed.

The feed from the link you posted plays much clearer than if I stream it directly off nasa's main page even though they both say NASA HD. Thanks for the link!

Thanks for the link, watching. Wish I had sound at work, should have brought headphones.

Ha! Looks like we both had the same idea at the same moment.

Tim, I had trouble getting the direct NASA feed to play at all. Just amazed this one works, given how badly our connection at work sucks.

It's such a weird feeling. The shuttle program has existed for almost as long as I've been alive (and certainly as long as I can remember understanding what spaceflight was.)

I remember where I was when Challenger popped, and when Discovery finally went back up nearly three years later, and when Columbia came apart, and when Discovery was again the first bird back up to resume the program...


And now, after this, that'll just be it.


It took the US nearly 50 years, but we finally pulled it off. We lost the Space Race to the Russians. Nobody knew it was an Enduro, not a Sprint.

What's the smoke or vapor that's coming off around the base of the boosters?

FUCK, the feed is getting choppy!

mgeoffriau, I've had the video in the background so I'm not 100% sure what you're looking at, but remember that the whole main tank is one huge cryogenic bottle filled with supercooled LOX and H2, so it's normal for some gas to be bled off of it as things heat up.

I hope my launch is a go for Vegas this afternoon. Mission Control is expecting thunderstorms and flash flooding at Dulles.

http://svmomblog.typepad.com/.a/6a00...57ff970b-800wi

there are a few options for streams on the nasa page. ustream seems pretty flawless at the moment.

The countdown clock is running. -8:30.

I'm watching the mobile stream. Seems a little smoother though obviously the quality isn't as good.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-mobile



EDIT:


They just showed a close up of the base of the shuttle....little white nozzles spraying what looks like a vapor. So is that bleeding off excess pressure?

countdown resumed from t-9 minutes

Watching, thanks for the link.

Holy shit, I did not realize the main nozzles were directional. Badass.

thrust vectoring? they look to have a lot of range of movement.

Ruh-roh.

oh shit!

failure at :31

Aargh.