Discovery's last ride.

Mike Diack

Mike Diack

Sophomore
Jan 12, 2011
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Done pretty well for a 25 year old clunker with a quarter of a billion km on the clock.
Seems kinda sad that it will end up gathering dust in some museum.
M
 
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Re: Discovery's last ride.

Buying spare parts from eBay... when was the last time you saw a Zilog Z-80 or an Intel 8080?

It's the end of an era, for sure, and I'm not confident in the USA policy of making space exploration a private, corporate affair. Time will tell.

One of my favorite gigs involved several retired astronauts and military aviators. Without exception a bunch of very classy, smart and amazingly humble guys. The space program paid off in human terms, too. It's our loss, now.
 
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Re: Discovery's last ride.

Mike Diack said:
Done pretty well for a 25 year old clunker with a quarter of a billion miles on the clock.
Seems kinda sad that it will end up gathering dust in some museum.
M
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There has been an effort to get a shuttle on permanent display at the USS Intrepid Sea-Air & Space museum in NYC. That would be pretty cool IMO. I expect the Smithsonian would get their hands on one too. At least that would be better then scrapping it.
 
Re: Discovery's last ride.

Tim McCulloch said:
Buying spare parts from eBay... when was the last time you saw a Zilog Z-80 or an Intel 8080?

It's the end of an era, for sure, and I'm not confident in the USA policy of making space exploration a private, corporate affair. Time will tell.

One of my favorite gigs involved several retired astronauts and military aviators. Without exception a bunch of very classy, smart and amazingly humble guys. The space program paid off in human terms, too. It's our loss, now.
Click to expand...

In the late 90's we were using Z-80 clones (industrial engineering). At that point it wasn't a matter of being outdated or slow, but they were just using the right tool for the job. I'm not sure if that is still the case today since they have moved on to a different product line with a new architecture since I left.

I am also disturbed by the privatization of our space program...
 
Re: Discovery's last ride.

Mike Diack said:
Surprisingly recently actually - 8080 ? Must be one of those new fangled jobs...
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The Z80(s) that I have seen most recently had a form factor like this:
Z84C0010FEC_LQFP.png

Just saw two inside an old PCM90 yesterday. Could be more common than I realize.
 
Re: Discovery's last ride.

Well, now that NASA has been repurposed, and its priority has become to "...to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science and engineering -- science, math and engineering..." (NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden in an Al-Jazeera interview) we don't need this aging toy, and maybe we can sell it on eBay.
 
Re: Discovery's last ride.

Mike Butler (media) said:
Well, now that NASA has been repurposed, and its priority has become to "...to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science and engineering -- science, math and engineering..." (NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden in an Al-Jazeera interview) we don't need this aging toy, and maybe we can sell it on eBay.
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You have to be kidding me. I'm not up to date on all that's happening with the Space Program, but if that's where they're headed, I'm quickly losing faith in this country! :(~:-(~:sad:
 
Re: Discovery's last ride.

Silas Pradetto said:
You have to be kidding me. I'm not up to date on all that's happening with the Space Program, but if that's where they're headed, I'm quickly losing faith in this country! :(~:-(~:sad:
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It makes me wonder just what people are thinking when they go into the voting booth, both nationally back in 2008 and right here in the "NUT"meg state just this past November!
 
Re: Not Discovery's last ride.

Shuttle launch from the Dolphin Hotel, right outside Blue Zoo, where my dinner was getting cold.

Mac
 

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Re: Discovery's last ride.

Bennett Prescott said:
Embedded...
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Oh SNAP... Embedded Video!!

I've had the chance to do a few gigs on Capitol Hill with the crews slated for the future Orion Project... Astronauts are just the coolest!! Some of the most approachable and humble people I have ever worked with... funny bunch too... I have a feeling they all have a good laugh at work when they are not under the gun.
 
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