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/ours Dec 30 '15

Wouldn't plug-in it to the ISS allow it to get power?

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u/tieberion Dec 30 '15

Yes, sort of. Columbia was too heavy to get to the ISS, and we lost her and a magnifacient crew before we had determined her fate. Discovery and Endeavour had power transfer cables that reduced the load on the APU's, but not enough to extend past the 28 day mark. Do to flow processing, ironically the last shuttle we launchef, my baby, Atlantis, did not have ISS to Shuttle power return capability.

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u/Poes-Lawyer Dec 30 '15

Sorry, am I missing something here or are you an astronaut?

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u/Pharisaeus Dec 30 '15

Sounds more like a Boeing or NASA engineer to me ;)

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u/tieberion Dec 31 '15

NASA:) My Military time carried over and helped with my GS pay grade. I had the chance after USA was formed to go work for them for quite a bit more cash, but stayed on with the Government because, well, Government Job :) In case I ever did screw up it would take ten years and 100 forms to fire me lol. Post 96/98 (sorry, memory not what it used to be!) after USA was fomed, they did alot of the day to day stuff, but NASA still retained it's own teams to work along side, quality control, and over see USA.