NASA Prepares Discovery for Launch

eggoeater writes "Yahoo! reports that Kennedy Space Center is buzzing with excitement over the likely launch of Space Shuttle Discovery this Spring. It's been just over two years since the Columbia tragedy and the Discovery has been outfitted with many new safety features, including the removal of the foam from the external tank and pressure sensors on the wings that would detect an impact. Quote from launch director Michael D. Leinbach: 'It's all converging on what looks like May 15 to start flying the shuttle again.'"

Comments

70s technology

[luvirini]

The basic problem of the shuttle come from the fact that it is mostly 70s technology with some glueover.

Thus the materials are so much heavier than corresponding would be today an so on.

The Way NASA has been trying to keep this program alive by more clue is likely to end in further embarassments.

Too bad there is not enough focus to do great things, instead NASA has just become another CYA organisation.

Re:70s technology

[jokumuu]

Seems to me they lost track of their vision somewhere as organisation. I am not saying there are not dedicated people as such there, there are many, but the organisation itself has lost it's goals.

Re:70s technology

[Long-EZ]

I find it to be amazing that 95% of NASA can be so talented, intelligent and motiated, and the organization can be so completely ruined and its effects minimalized by the 5% who are plugged into the funding and end up calling the shots based on the political process. When the entire organization exists to spend money, the science is often an unintended result, at least from the perspective of the people who are writing the checks and setting policy.

NASA is now too political to be anything but a festering mound of poot. I feel sorry for the many technical people who are trying to do good work in that environment. I couldn't do it. Hopefully, the best and the brightest will get a good job in the new commercial space ventures that are popping up and can finally have their dreams realized.

Re:Oh finally!

[Long-EZ]

You are laboring under the practical geek perspective. You definitely aren't seeing it from the congressional perspective. Their job is not to do as much science while spending as little money as possible. That would be practical. They're political. Their job is to spend as many tax dollars as possible, in their own districts. So, they make deals. I'll vote for your pork if you vote for my pork. Taxpayers vote for the biggest pork politicians, and the cycle repeats.

The only cure is to stop voting for more pork, and I don't see that happening. As a nation, we're far too short sighted and self interested.

So, if congress is the boss because it controls the purse strings, how do you think NASA will behave? Just like any employee, they quickly realize the boss's goal and agenda and make it their own. So, the people who manage NASA are not in the business of cost effective space exploration. In fact, quite the opposite. They're in the business of spending tax dollars in several congressional districts.

And that's why we need private space exploration and development, and we finally have it. Many companies now see the possibility and they have the vision and motivation to do what NASA couldn't.

It's sad that NASA did so much in the early years and then the political process ruined it late in the Apollo era. Despite some very bright scientists, engineers and astronauts, they just can't help being a government bureaucracy. Why? As usual, it has everything to do with the movement of little green pieces of paper. Lots of little green pieces of paper.

Re:Big Dumb Boosters

[LWATCDR]

I think Helnlein got this wrong. A better model would be Airliners.
1. Is correct.
2. is right.
3 Exceedingly complex, expensive, reliable, and efficient.

Modern jet airliners are not basic or cheap. But they are reliable and efficient. All this talk of going back to Big Dumb Boosters is like saying Lets stick with DC-3s they are so much cheaper and simpler than 777s.