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NASA Prepares Discovery for Launch

Posted by Zonk on from the up-up-and-away dept.

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.'"

9 of 129 comments (clear)

  1. Sounds good, but expensive. by bigtallmofo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm glad the shuttle program is going back online but with the price of launching a Soyuz being about 1/25th the cost of a shuttle launch, I'm not sure how much we should depend on the shuttle.

    --
    I'm a big tall mofo.
    1. Re:Sounds good, but expensive. by jokumuu · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The Real problem is that while the shuttle was being built (and fought over in budgets) NASA intentionally tried to stop all other forms of space flight to keep the shuttle program alive. The end result was the the shuttle had to fullfill so many missions that it became a "jack of all trades, master of none." So currently US does not have anything approachng Soyuz in capacity as alternative to the shuttle.

    2. Re:Sounds good, but expensive. by Docrates · · Score: 4, Interesting

      A Soyuz doesn't have the cargo capacity that the Shuttle has, which is why ISS construction has been halted and supplies are running tight.

      The real question is if America should continue supporting the construction of the ISS. Circumstantially I think she should, even if the scientific and engineering profit from the program is limited.

      --

      There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
    3. Re:Sounds good, but expensive. by willith · · Score: 3, Interesting

      By contrast NASA is wasting $500 billion on CEV this year alone and they wont get ANYTHING for it other than pretty computer generated images. Building CEV is going to cost at least 36 times as much as Kliper and is scheduled to be 4 years later for its first manned launch, 2010 versus 2014.

      That's because CEV's intended role, as a platform that can be used for interplanetary expeditions, is much broader than Kliper's intended role as a bus to ferry people and cargo to LEO. The competing CEV design teams have a lot more complicated problems to solve, like, how do we keep the crew from being fried by radiation while they're hanging somewhere in the spaces between worlds, and how do we engineer a complex, multi-role vehicle that can launch, go to Mars, send down a lander component to deliver people and cargo, lift back off and rendezvous, and then return those people and cargo to earth?

      You're not just comparing apples to oranges; you're comparing apples to 747s.

  2. Best scientific quote ever by rbarreira · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Several important matters remain unresolved, including what to use for in-flight repair of the thermal tiles, which protect the shuttle's nose and belly from temperatures of more than 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit upon reentry.

    Five methods are being studied, including a giant caulking gun that dispenses pinkish-orange goo.

    --

    The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
  3. Re:Oh finally! by luvirini · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Nope, as NASA has become a bunch of scared old folks basically. Every mission they do has to follow a set of safety standards, among them the fact that the shuttle has to have the option of evacuating to the international space station. Hubble's orbit makes this impossible, thus no direct resque missions.

  4. Re:BOFH? by digitalchinky · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Doesn't snopes or one of those other urban legend sites have something about that pen, fully privately funded by fisher, nothing at all to do with NASA. Price tag was 2 million as well.

    The russians also use 'pens' by the way. Pencil dust and all.

  5. Big Dumb Boosters by Peter777 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Anyone remember from 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress', that Heinlein predicts rocket tech will have evolved into something far simpler that what we have today (or back then even)? His summary of space tech for the next couple of hundered years went something like:

    1. Exceedingly basic and unreliable.

    2. Exceedingly complex and expensive.

    3. Basic, reliable and cheap.

    I wonder when no.3 will arrive...http://www.wws.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/byte serv.prl/~ota/disk1/1989/8904/8904.PDF

  6. Re:BOFH? by dbIII · · Score: 3, Interesting
    As Americans, we over engineer
    I think you'll find the phrase is really "micromanage and change direction often". Also the basics are not looked at sometimes. After reading "Dragonfly" about american astronauts on Mir, it appears that the psychological testing which I always thought was the only non-fiction part of "I Dream of Jeanie" was also fiction. People that were not suited to the task of working in a closed environment as a team for months were sent into space without being tested to see whether they were suitable or not. One glaring example of the management problems at NASA some years back was that the people who knew about the fault that led to the challenger accident did not have a way to get that inforamation to the people at the top of the organisation without going through an outsider that had a Nobel prize (so had some serious credibility).

    The pen story was a myth anyway - reality is far worse - components assembled at greater cost in different states for the purpose of political pork barrelling.