Talk:STS-134/Archive 1

Is this really serious

 * I don't think this article would fare well in an Afd, this is mostly a compendium or rumors and wishful thinking. Hektor (talk) 21:41, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I would say that there is strong evidence that it could fly, and if not, then the proposal is certainly notable. I don't fully understand the US legislative system, but to my limited understanding, a bill has been passed mandating NASA to fly the AMS, and therefore another Shuttle mission would be required. This designation has been associated with such a mission. -- GW_SimulationsUser Page 22:24, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * GW, isn't there a link on a NSF forum to an article talking about the possible use of ET-122 as the LON tank for this mission if required and the deadline for ordering the SRBs. That should be found and included here since it shows that NASA management is also seriously considering this. -MBK004 23:09, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Found it: "He (John Shannon) said external tank 122, which was damaged in Hurricane Katrina, could be upgraded and prepared for launch-on-need use if needed. A set of boosters would have to be procured, but "I don't have to make the decision for configuring ET-122 or the extra boosters until the middle of next year," -MBK004 23:20, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

ELC 5
I propose deleting the talk about ELC 5 due to the fact that it is conjecture, there is not any verifiable evidence that it is being considered in any official capacity, and also the fact that there are not enough payload attachment points on P3/S3 to accommodate both ELC-5 and AMS-02 if launched on STS-134. See: and  (Ronsmytheiii (talk) 01:31, 14 July 2008 (UTC))

The ELC's are designed to be emptied and brought back. So if they have one that they have/can emptied or move some to other stowage locations and bring it back on the shuttle then ELC5 and AMS can fly.--navy_blue84 Navy Blue 19:31, 31 August 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Navy blue84 (talk • contribs)

ET-138 or ET-122
If STS-134 is a LON, it will use the ET-138 as shown here. If STS-134 was a nominal mission it could use the ET-122, and its LON would use ET-138... Hektor (talk) 21:29, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

In this page (See Table in ) it is mentioned that STS-134 will use Atlantis. However, here it is mentioned that the mission will use Discovery. Which one is correct? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.159.2.32 (talk) 23:03, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

STS-134 will use ET-138, and STS-135 (LON) will use ET-122. Currently there are no plans for ET-122 to be refurbed, but that is the plan. The mission will be flown by Discovery. Atlantis will still be in a state which she can fly, after being stood down from her last flight. The reason Atlantis will be the LON shuttle, is because they will not be able to have Endeavour ready after her STS-133 mission.--Navy blue84 (talk) 13:50, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Mission Duration
STS-134 is baselined (by NASA) as a 12-day mission. The current link stating the mission is 10-days in duration is wrong and has been for nearly 1-year. 147.253.174.14 (talk) 23:53, 12 March 2010 (UTC) C. Gebhardt

STS-133 after 134
There seems to be some confusion over whether STS-134 will or won't be the last flight. I think as of right now, we should leave it as is. Both STS-133 and 134 are base lined as launching in July, but we know that won't happen and one will slip to probably Sept. 16. There is no definitive reliable source saying STS-133 will be the last flight. A change request has to be submitted and approved which it has not been done yet. What does everyone think, should the article be left as is? Or should it be changed to reflect that STS-133 will be the last flight and 134 will be the second to last?--Navy blue84 (talk) 16:08, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Why not mention both positions in both articles? -- G W … 16:18, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not against that. What my concern/problem is, changing it so that it reads like 134 is not last. Mainly changing the info box links to the next mission. I think your idea is a good idea.--Navy blue84 (talk) 16:45, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Navy blue84, thanks for correcting my mistaken edit from earlier -- point well made. :-) Dsf (talk) 11:40, 9 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I've put both options in the infobox. -- G W … 17:33, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

But the shuttle launch schedule page at Nasa, updated on July 2, lists STS 134's launch date as September 16, 2010, as does the launch manifest, updated June 22. Seems to me that, lacking a source for the dual launch dates of July 2010 we should re-insert the Sept. 16 date. What am I missing here? Canada Jack (talk) 16:15, 6 July 2009 (UTC)


 * The citation has now been supplied, confirming the above double launch date (ie, both on July 29 2010). Thanks. Canada Jack (talk) 16:42, 6 July 2009 (UTC)


 * STS-135 has now been officially cleared by Congress and funding has been provided, and STS-134 is no longer the last space shuttle flight. Rsteilberg 18:50, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Raise the importance stale?
Since this is the final space shuttle mission, shouldn't this be a very important thing and have its importance at high?76.21.122.234 (talk) 00:05, 15 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree CybergothiChé (talk) 12:12, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * This is no longer true, this is no longer the last space shuttle mission (STS-135 has been authorized by Congress) Rsteilberg 18:51, 14 March 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rsteilberg (talk • contribs)

Controversy about cancellation?
What does controversy about cancellation (which did not help the US colleagues with regards to the SSC, btw) have to do with facts?

Facts are that the USA have signed an international agreement to provide transportation of AMS-02 to ISS. There are no constraints about how they do and in fact there were studies to evaluate use of expendable vehicles. It turns out that using the Shuttle seems to be marginally cheaper, so, the mission was re-manifested by US Congress (not by Professor Ting, who does indeed have the merit to having educated many US citizens about AMS-02 which had not gotten much of the spotlight previously).

Is it so hard to write articles that stick to the facts? That's what readers expect from Wikipedia. In fact, those who look up an entry, are likely to do so because they want to know about it, not because they want to check it.

I hope someone will bother taking their precious time to sift facts from fiction. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.153.7.168 (talk) 21:36, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

2011 Tucson shooting
This event, 2011 Tucson shooting may have some effect on the mission. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 22:56, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

The Tucson shooting is almost certainly going to have an effect. The mission commander's wife was shot in the head in the shooting. At this time, she is in critical condition. We should wait for more information as events unfold. --75.16.138.88 (talk) 00:35, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

She is alive at this writing. Ultimately, though, I don't think this incident has had an effect on the mission. Gingermint (talk) 00:11, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

penultimate - what a cool word !
Makes adding low frequently used words, derived from Latin or Greek, good wikipedia articles? I don't think so! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.204.137.69 (talk) 14:19, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think one can say "penultimate" is a low frequency used word. I've heard it used at lest three times today and the majority of people I know have no college education nor are in one of the "professions." It's more than silly to consider it a highfalutin word. Gingermint (talk) 00:13, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

This mission is often referred to as the penultimate one. I also don't see an issue with use of the word here. The editor that added it wasn't trying to be fancy. It's the right word to use.--RadioFan (talk) 00:59, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

"Penultimate" is just such a commonly used, every day word, I can't believe anyone would think it is rare. It's not like the editor used "antepenultimate" or "preantepenultimate" - now if that was case then you may have a point as those words are relatively rare! Plain old "penultimate" is very common though, I'm very surprised some people have an issue with it. It's used in popular media, e.g. here Green Lane (talk) 09:37, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh good, someone started a section about this already. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the comment about penultimate being a "low frequency word". I agree that it's not really rare, as the examples "antepenultimate" or "preantepenultimate" are, but it's also not a real common word. It's uncommon enough that it's been cross wikilinked to Wiktionary, after all. I just wonder how necessary it really is, here. It may be pithy, but I'm personally not afraid of being verbose where that can increase understanding. — V = IR (Talk&thinsp;&bull;&thinsp;Contribs) 01:02, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, well lets say for the moment I accept your argument that some people may not know what "penultimate" means. (Even though admittedly, the idea that people would not know this seems a peculiar one to me personally). To that I would say three things. 1) The problem has been solved by the aforementioned Wiktionary link provided by the editor. IMHO, it's a good thing if people learn the meaning of the word as it may come in useful elsewhere. 2) If this were the Simple English Wikipedia then I'd agree there may be a case for avoiding the word, if it could be replaced with the equivalent, if more verbose limited vocabulary allowed on that particular wiki. However on the main English Wikipedia, we have no such restrictions, so no real need to do this. 3) There are currently 3,638 pages in the main article space on the English Wikipedia using the word "Penultimate". If we remove the word from this article, then to be consistent it would have to be removed from all of those articles too. I think this may come up against some opposition and would also be so much work as to be impractical. These are just my personal thoughts on this. Green Lane (talk) 21:44, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

GMT is wrong and why not just use UTC?
Yes it launched at 8:56am EDT, but that is NOT 13:56 GMT. The D in EDT is for Daylight (or as the Europeans call it, Summer Time). GMT is constant year round; London is currently on British Summer Time, a.k.a. Western European Summer Time, which is GMT+1. GMT is the same as UTC (at least in this situation) and should be corrected to 12:56. Also why is GMT listed at all? I thought we were all supposed to switch to using UTC instead, like the summary box on the right side of the page does?

Matt Str8bourbon (talk) 17:05, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

STS 134 has launched
STS 134 launched sucessfully on time at 8:56 am it is now in space and enroute to the Space Station.

Consider changing it —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.250.160.68 (talk) 14:19, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

STEM Bars
Apparently these were "created by high sisters Mikayla and Shannon Diesch". What are "high sisters"? Are they intoxicated? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.209.6.143 (talk) 11:53, 18 May 2011 (UTC)


 * It was supposed to say high school students and sisters. Somehow it either got removed or not put in, but it is fixed now.-- Navy Blue84  12:53, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

500,000 Gallons of what?
The section STS-134 mentions the tank was filled with 500,000 gallons but doesn't say of what. I assume rocket fuel :) but it would be helpful to specify exactly what kind of fuel is used.

MeekMark (talk) 16:51, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Liquid hydrogen and Liquid oxygen. Its now listed. Dusty777 (talk) 20:53, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Please use better video sizes
I have changed the gallery presentation of the videos in one section of the article at section STS-134 because to me they were a pitiful waste of the bandwidth for both the reader and wikimedia: the full size video data is sent to the user but then squashed into a tiny gallery thumbnail. Wikipedia users deserve better than this. My edit is only a workaround, in the hope that those with more skills can further improve the reader experience here and in other sections. Even my choice of 320 is a waste of bandwidth when the 1280 pixel width on one of the videos is considered. My edit summary comment is "make the videos a size that makes sense for the bandwidth consumed, or else please use lower bandwidth video". -84user (talk) 13:06, 25 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I shrank them down a bit. 320 px is an awful large size. If you want to see it in a bigger area, click on the video and not the play button first. I also removed the shorter launch video, since it does not really need to be there. You get everything you need from the longer one. Plus the longer one is just better then the short one.-- Navy Blue84  17:18, 25 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I uploaded the videos were referring to, and in retrospect I regret uploading them at such high resolutions. I'm not knowledgeable about online video streaming (or video files in general), so I'm unsure about how I would go about decreasing the bandwidth (I converted them with Miro, which has no options, though I think I might be able to decrease the bandwidth with VLC). I'll upload smaller resolution replacements as soon as I can, and if I upload videos for 135. The only reason I added the launch replay video is that it was an unusually good video given where it was taken from (i.e., usually the exhaust obscures the shuttle well before it clears the tower, unlike in the video you were referring to). --Jatkins (talk - contribs) 18:36, 25 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I've redownloaded the three videos, reduced their resolution and bandwidth substantially, uploaded them to Commons with a width of 160px and bandwidths 218–231 kbps, and replaced all instances of the use of the higher resolution versions across all Wikimedia projects with these lower resolutions versions.


 * File:STS-134 launch 160px.ogv
 * File:STS-134's external tank falls to Earth 160px.ogv
 * File:STS-134 launch 2 160px.ogv


 * --Jatkins (talk - contribs) 17:19, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Speaking from a Commons user perspective, please continue uploading at the highest resolution and quality possible. This allows others to make most use of the video, such as crop, chop or reduce its size to suit. My concern from an English Wikipedia perspective was only to ensure we give the reader the best "bang for the buck" so to speak. That means the best quality for the given bandwidth used. You have done this the best way I feel: upload one version large and high quality and upload one version small thumbnail sized and low bitrate. I have found getting the best quality from a conversion is as much art as it is science. I tend to use ffmpeg2theora from a command line which allows nearly all the options imaginable, but that is not at all easy. -84user (talk) 20:03, 30 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I'll try to do both. It's not too tedious; I have a save profile in movie maker (yes, _that_ movie maker) which keeps the bandwidth down and the width at 160px, then I just put the output through Miro Video Converter and upload the resultant .ogv. btw, thanks for pointing this whole thing out, I think it's now in a much better state than it was before when they had to wait for the larger resolution versions to load. --Jatkins (talk - contribs) 21:45, 30 May 2011 (UTC)