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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."
Let's stop messing around with this piece of shit and develop something wonderful through international cooperation. Just like in The Contact.
Hmm.. I guess they need my shovell. It take care of my car during winter.
hilarious
Why don't you take the money you're spending on bandwidth and spend it again on charities that help third world countries? The moral position you're arguing in favor of would require it.
Scientific research is a necessity to improve the quality of life for everyone on the planet. Human space flight is an important avenue for scientific research.
By the way, for the record, the 2003 US budget for food aid was $2.5B; for the Shuttle, the budget was $3.1B.
Remember all the ice raining off the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo rockets in the launch movies?
All those guys said was "Let's light this candle"
Spray de-icer on it? Wrap it in an insulator? Blow warm dry air over it? Why can't there be a low tech solution to this?
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.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
read this as "NASA Ponders Postponing Lunch until July?
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.
This postponement is so they will have more time to copy the features of Tiger...
NASA did the job once, but since then they've done nothing but screw shit up.
It's time for Congress to get off their asses and ACT. Jerry Pournelle came up with the idea, which would get us a complete spaceflight system in five years, and only cost 10 Billion Dollars.
How?
Congress must pass TWO lines of legislation.
1) It is in the National Interest of the United States to have a mature spaceflight technology.
2) The Tresurer of The United States is directed to pay, tax free, the sum of TEN BILLION DOLLARS to the first American Company to keep thirty Americans alive and well on the surface of the moon for Three Years and A Day.
That's it folks. If we ain't got it, it's cause BUSH and Co don't want us to have it.
( Not that Klin-ton wanted us to have it, either, though... This idea ain't new. )
All we lack is the will to achieve great things. Killing kids over lies, that we can do. "Supporting Our Troops", check.
Pass TWO LINES of legislation to ensure AMERICANS have a stake in The Future? Nah...
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
"If we die, do not mourn for us. This is a risky business we're in, and we accept those risks. The space program is too valuable to this country to be halted for too long if a disaster should ever happen."
Gus Grissom
Well the issue is suddenly that people are concerned about the heat shield failing, yes? On the old rockets that went to the Moon, was it not that the heat shield was hidden almost until re-entry?
It's a design flaw in the Shuttle, essentially. They're making sure that it's less likely happen again, over the course of the Shuttle's remaining years in service. Can you imagine what would happen if the next Shuttle were to suffer the same fate as the last? They're trying to get back to space using the only workable vehicle they have just now, so that the US is back in space, not waiting for a replacement. They might as well try to carry out this risky business in as safe a way as possible, and if that means delaying by another two months, so be it.
Detection.
... I say "medicine is detecting more than in 1965".
... from THIS DECADE!
This is like saying "cancer rates are up compared to 1965"
If you think the early flights were "safer" you're most likely sadly mistaken. They just didn't know about all the problems that could go wrong or had ways of addressing them.
Keep in mind the driving force was to beat the ruskies to the moon. So at all costs.
Though I agree. The shuttles are outdated and there are likely cheaper/safer ways to accomplish the same goal using technology
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Come on, think of the big picture here. I know being simplistic and small-minded is the catch-phrase of our "new generation". But what if they said this 40 years ago? Why even go to space? Look at all of the technologies we have developed whilst trying to get there. We would not be able to live without half of these advances! (Especially the freeze dried food).
More importantly, compare $3.1B against:
(a) amount spent on pizzas in the US
(b) amount spent on election campaigns
(c) amount paid to actors for acting?
If you are going to be fair, then be fair. Talk about it being a capitalist world, and that we only give money for food at all because we are:
(a) making ourselves look better on the world stage
(b) appeasing that guilty little bit of ourselves
Good luck NASA! You guys will be the ones that get us off the planet one day.