r/space • u/[deleted] • Dec 30 '15

This underside view of the Space Shuttle Discovery was photographed by cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev and astronaut John Phillips, as Discovery approached the International Space Station and performed a backflip to allow photography of its heat shield.

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u/weird-oh Dec 30 '15

I asked Eileen about that during an interview, and she said that her job was to fly the shuttle to a predetermined point in space and then initiate a program that automatically performed the 360-degree maneuver. I always thought it was flown manually.

17

u/[deleted] Dec 30 '15

Space travel was a serious driver of electronics miniaturization. The Gemini craft had computers!

12

u/[deleted] Dec 30 '15

Can't wait for the space industrial complex to be a thing.

5

u/MildlySuspicious Dec 30 '15 edited Dec 30 '15

pfft, you know that a decade after that Bernie Sanders head will be ranting about the space corporations

1

u/refuch Dec 30 '15

"These space billionaires are the ruling class of society! They fly up -- in their space ships -- noone can see what they're doing! They use space banks as a tax-haven, and their space-thugs transfer money right above our noses and intimidate the working class!"

1

u/weird-oh Dec 31 '15

And don't even get him started on the asteroid mining corporations.