NASA Ponders Postponing Launch until July

BitFluid writes "According to Sun-Sentinel.com, NASA is considering postponing its Return to Flight shuttle launch because of 'ongoing concern about possible ice buildup on a liquid oxygen propellant line.' Apparently, that stuff turns into debris on launch, a risk they need time to investigate. If delayed, the target launch window becomes July 13 through July 31."

Comments

Sensors

[tahii]

Apparenly the delay is due to a sensor failure that occured during tank testing. The delay will assist with getting a few other things sorted too, like cleaning up a hydraulic fluid spill.

NasaSpaceFlight.com has a nice write-up about it.

Re:Better Use for the Shuttle Money

[FTL]

> They could stop the shuttle program and use the money in the few years in between now and when the new man-rated launch-vehicle comes out to seed promising space initiatives by private firms. I'm sure this would more than pay for itself.

The Shuttle is the only vehicle capable of completing the International Space Station. If you stop flying the shuttle right now, the Space Station would be doomed. That's billions of dollars worth of hardware wasted.

Don't care about ISS? Then what about other countries? America convinced Canada, Brazil, most of Europe, Japan and Russia to pool its resources and focus on building the space station. Pull out now, and you will NEVER be trusted again. Even if ISS isn't worth the price of the shuttle, pulling a multi-billion dollar fraud on the rest of the space-faring world will hurt America for decades to come.

Oh yeah, and without the shuttle, there's no Hubble. Nasa's new administrator is still thinking about the pros and cons of sending a shuttle up to fix it.

No, the mature thing to do is to hurry up and finish the space station, then drop the shuttle. Which is exactly what Nasa is planning.