New Problem Could Ground Space Shuttle Fleet

Ender writes "As if the NASA folks at KSC did not have enough problems to deal with a the moment, (see previous /. article on the engine cracks and the following CNN article on the repairs) a NEW problem has sufaced in the Apollo Era transporter which vehiculates the Shuttles to the launch pads (crawler). They found many cracked bearings in the cylinders that lift the shuttle and its launch platform on the transporter. After this discovery they took a look at the other crawler and it too had quite numerous cracked bearings. No word from NASA yet but these findings may further delay the next Space Shuttle launch which is currently scheduled for NET (no earlier than) Sept 28th and by the same token slow down the assembly of the ISS. Complete articles at SpaceFlightNow and United Press International."

Comments

Gentlemen, start your whining!

[Chairboy]

I predict the feedback will be filled with the following:

1. Whining to the effect of 'they JUST found these? All the bearings went bad at once?'

2. Whining to the effect of 'They're still using 40+ year old crawlers? How dumb!'

3. Whining to the effect of 'NASA is so stupid, they can't even drive 5 miles, much less fly a million in a shuttle'

4. A few token 'We should be at moon/mars/jupiter by now, NASA has just fallen by the wayside and is a relic of lost dreams' whines

5. A few people will get a kick out of saying 'Maybe we should pay the Russians to help us with our space technology?' and 'Can't they fix this by having Natalie P. put grits on the bearings?'

6. Finally, one or two levelheaded people will say 'This stuff happens, and I'm glad they're catching it now instead of when a shuttle falls off a crawler'.

Of course, #6 will be basically ignored, and instead a message saying 'If these bearings failed, it would be bad.' will be marked +5 Insightful, +5 Interesting, and +5 Informative, the three I's of insipid posts that bring to mind the sound of a million people saying 'Well, duh....'

Pics of the Cracked Bearings

[Kumba]

NASA has to be one of the few agencies to take pictures of most of their activities. They added Pictures of the cracked bearings today to the KSC Media Archive, and they are some ugly cracks.

Links can be found here:
KSC-02PD-1166
KSC-02PD-1167
KSC-02PD-1168
KSC-02PD-1169
KSC-02PD-1170
KSC-02PD-1171

--Kumba

Number 8 - NASASpeak

[CProgrammer98]

what the hell sort of word is "vehiculates"???

It amuses me that NASA has to invent fancy new words when there's perfectly good word that will do the job - "TRANSPORTS".

I guess it makes them sound important or something.

vehiculates - I bet that one isn't in the OED!