NASA buys SRMs for STS-335

[agentgonzo]

Why not leave one in orbit?

They will eventually experience drag and reenter the atmosphere. They don't want to have an uncontrolled reentry that could potentially land on a civilized area (and are in fact required by international law now to safely deorbit or park any satellites they launch). That's why the latest Hubble mission put the soft-capture mechanism on Hubble. When it's mission is over it will be safely deorbited and land in the ocean, rather than deorbit over time and land in a random location somewhere.

It'd be romantic to leave it in orbit, but serve no useful purpose and be potentially dangerous.

 

[Ark]

slightly off topic but whats going to happen to endeavor discovery and atlantis after retirement?

We send them on a one-way mission to set up a colony on Titan. :thumbup:

 

[Ghostrider]

Sending any shuttle in orbit merely for sentimental reasons make no sense - it costs money to launch them and would cost money to automatize them in order to make the whole flight to a safe parking orbit where nobody could visit them.

On Earth, inside some museums, they can serve as an attraction and help raise revenue for those museums - they always need the spare change - and can help inspire another generation of wannabe astronauts (which is better than inspiring another generation of wannabe Paris Hiltons or worse).

 

[T.Neo]

Sentimentally, I'd rather see the shuttles in museums...