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NASA Postpones Shuttle Launch

Posted by Zonk on from the getting-antsy-on-the-ground dept.

Mictian writes "NASA has decided to postpone Discovery's upcoming Return to Flight (STS-114) by a week to May 22. This is done in order to give the agency more time to finish paperwork, analyses and reviews of safety changes made. The delay came as no surprise, since the original May 15 date was always considered preliminary. The current launch window extends from May 15 to June 3."

5 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. Re:WTF by rhadamanthus · · Score: 3, Informative
    As someone who works at NASA on the SSP, let me tell you a well known axiom:


    "Every shuttle launch entails putting roughly 4.5 million tons of weight into orbit - and closing out about twice as much weight in paper."


    Jokes aside, most of the paperwork is there for a good reason. Every single component on the shuttle is certified for the entire flight envelope. It's quite a challenge.

    --
    Slashdot needs to interview Natalie Portman.
  2. Re:WTF by blueturffan · · Score: 5, Informative
    Would you rather NASA spent hours and hours filling out paper saying how many pins they heard drop this week and how many screws they may have put in the test models or would you rather they spent that time improve technology so we can all bugger off this planet?

    I suppose it's a matter of perspective. If I'm strapped to the top of a rocket, I want to be sure that every seemingly trivial detail has been documented and double-checked.

    By the way, one of the reasons that NASA was able to return to flight so quickly after the Apollo 13 incident was that they were able to go back and determine exactly what had caused the oxygen tank in the SM to explode. In looking back through the "paperwork", they were able to determine that there were two separate events (tank dropped two inches, and relays not updated to new pad voltage reqirements) that contributed to the explosion. By the way, the tank dropping incident happened two years before the crew was named!

    In the Apollo days, they used to joke that they weren't ready to launch until the pile of paperwork matched the height of the rocket. (363 feet)

  3. Re:WTF by FatAlb3rt · · Score: 3, Informative

    Except your number is off by a factor of 2000 (lbs not tons) and only about 250k lbs actually makes it to orbit (as someone who formerly worked SSP and now ISS). :) Not to discount your point though - isn't bureacracy great?

  4. Re:All for the best, I suppose. by joeljkp · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just for the record, the shuttles have collectively flown 113 missions so far.

    --
    WeRelate.org - wiki-based genealogy
  5. Re:YES by willith · · Score: 3, Informative

    We cannot make another saturn V because some of the paperwork has been lost.

    This is incorrect. The Saturn V blueprints are safe and completely intact on microfilm at MSFC, where they have been since the 1960s. Nothing at all has been lost. From the link:

    "The Federal Archives in East Point, Georgia, also has 2,900 cubic feet of Saturn documents," he said. "Rocketdyne has in its archives dozens of volumes from its Knowledge Retention Program. This effort was initiated in the late '60s to document every facet of F 1 and J 2 engine production to assist in any future restart."