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Dennis Threatens Discovery Launch Date
BitFluid writes "According to CNN.com, hurricane Dennis is casting doubt on the shuttle's July 13th launch date. From the article: 'NASA has until the end of July to send Discovery on a flight to the international space station, otherwise it must wait until September to ensure a daylight launch.' Shuttle managers decided Thursday evening to begin initial preparations to move Discovery from the pad, as the hurricane increased in intensity and headed toward the Gulf of Mexico and Florida's southern tip. NASA spokesman George Diller said, 'We're going to keep our options open. We're still trying to protect the 13th.'"
Here's a tracking map of Hurricane Dennis, courtesy of the good folks over at Weather Underground.
Looks fairly safe (since Cape Canaveral is off the east coast of Florida), but I'm sure the boys over at NASA don't want to take any chances...
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
... than to destroy yet another shuttle.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
CNN is reporting now that they have decided to leave it out on the pad and the launch date is not threatened. I tried to notify the /. editor when I saw this posting but I was too late!
I feel bad for all those people in FL having to deal with this. I lived there a long time and never had to put up with so much hurricane activity.
get your dirty sig off me, you filthy APE!
Dennis and Cindy information . I don't see why Dennis would interfere with Cape C. I think NASA is being over-cautious, as they have been for the past few years. Then again, I am obviously not a rocket scientist. Nor am I a meteorologist. Now I'm questioning why I am even making this post! :)
I have something to say. It's better to burn out than to FADE AWAY!
It seems to me that Mother Nature is a little bit reluctant to let her children leave home and grow up...
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/07/08/shuttle.l aunch.ap/index.html
evil adrian
That's where the infrastructure is. It would very well cost many billions of dollars, if not up into the trillions, to duplicate the Florida establishments in Texas or New Mexico. Not to mention the cost of relocating all of the support staff.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
...the comic strip "Dennis the Menace", eh?
President George W. Bush has declared Dennis an international terrorist, guilty of violent acts in Jamaica and Cuba. In response to Dennis's threats against Kennedy Space Center he has ordered that Dennis be arrested and detained at Gitmo as an unlawful combatant indefinitely. In response to an aide's attempt to explain to Mr. Bush that Dennis was an "Act of God", Bush responsed "Well fine then, we'll go after him next."
Whew, really treading the line between -1 Troll and +5 Funny on this one.
The laws of probability forbid it!
I tell you, it's all the fault of the war between the Japanese and KGB!
"NASA managers Thursday evening decided to begin preparing the shuttle Discovery for a possible roll back to the protection of the Vehicle Assembly Building should Hurricane Dennis take a turn to the east and threaten the Space Coast. At a midnight meeting, however, officials put those preparations on hold. And this morning the decision was made to cancel any rollback.
Technicians at launch pad 39B have disconnected explosive ordnance as part of early rollback preparations. At a midnight senior management meeting, however, officials decided not to continue with the list of chores to unhook Discovery from its seaside complex given a more optimistic weather outlook that keeps Dennis well away from Kennedy Space Center. Proceeding with more rollback activities overnight would have prevented an on-time launch Wednesday.
Rollback to the VAB would have to be completed before the wind reaches 40 knots (46 MPH). [It would take] about 48 hours from the time the decision is made to the time we are in the VAB. We had a weather briefing and at this point we are fairly confident we will not have to fuss with the storm, at least this one this time. It's a long hurricane season."
Why, again, are NASA launches based in Florida? They always seem to schedule launches during the 'hurricane season'
Why don't they pack up shop and move to Texas or New Mexico? If they can set off a nuke there, I think a rocket accident is the least of their worries.
It needs to be at low lattitudes, to reduce the push required to get into orbit, and being on the east coast makes it easier to ship lots of stuff in by barge.
But most importantly, politics.
funny munging
From the article Managers want the best possible views of Discovery at liftoff to see if any foam insulation or other debris falls off the tank and hits the shuttle, as happened during Columbia's 2003 flight.
Forgive me, but what good would that do? So they could give the astronauts a few seconds to make peace if it is a problem that effects liftoff?
It seems to me that the shuttle has some serious issues... I mean, if they notice debris falling and damaging the shuttle, what can they do, is the shuttle carrying spare parts for a spacewalk repair of the exterior?
My opinion, the beurocracy is the problem... Why can the X prize competitors do what they do, but NASA, with many times the budget, has these problems? It must lie in the beurocracy.
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
Every two years Mars is in the right position for a launch window of three weeks. That happens to August for a new imaging orbiter. There is one week per month suitable for the space station, and these two collide in August.
latest launch news says they're not worried:
& CE=1
NASA still aiming for Wednesday shuttle launch
Hurricane Dennis isn't threatening the liftoff of the space shuttle Discovery, and NASA officials are still aiming for a liftoff next week.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8503328&&CM=EmailThis
Jesus saves souls and redeems them for valuable cash prizes
High velocity, turbulent winds + precise trajectories required = Very Bad
High-speed flying debris + extremely lightweight airframe components = Very Bad
Lightning + tall metal structure full of exceedingly combustable materials = Very Bad
If craft is launching: Rain + moving at thousands of meters per second, turning each drop into an impactor = Very Bad
Especially if craft is launching: Wind shear + very tall, weak object = Very Bad
Even if there is no damage to the craft, inspection time = Very Expensive, Bad.
Need I go on? Inclement weather is horrible to rockets. Even having to move the craft off its pad and back into the assembly building alone, then move it back, is a very big, expensive, time consuming task. If there's any damage to the building, and especially if there's damage to the vehicle, it could be a huge issue. Even if the storm doesn't hit Florida, slight bad weather from the fringes of the storm can be very bad for rockets during launch, for reasons described above and more.
"It felt almost as good as stealing cars from grandma." -- Margaret Thatcher, probably.
Not only that, but a stray rocket flying into Mexico could be disasterous for American foreign relations.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Politics is what put JSC in Houston. Geography by way of physics is what put KSC in Florida.
I think because if a down-range accident happens, you want the wreckage to land in the ocean, not on Phoenix or Ciudad Juarez.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
don't worry, you can try to catch them again before the dupe story is posted
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Ye see a FLASK. Obvious exits are NORTH, SOUTH, and DENNIS.
-- If you give him a trinket, he will help you... *ducks*
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
No, no, no President Fox. We didn't accidentally shoot a rocket into Mexico. It was simply a gift for the Mexican people...delivered at high velocities!
The laws of probability forbid it!
Recovering and reusing the boosters after they smash into the ground at 55 mph would be problematic.
Are you kidding or serious? I'll pretend serious.
The shuttle has several options in the event of damage. First off, they've spent the past several years, in addition to many, many other things, developing RCC and tile repair methods. While limited, they have the ability to fix small holes. Secondly, most debris falloff (which, by the way, was not a "shuttle" problem, but a problem with almost every rocket in the world, especially LOX/LH ones, but also for LOX/Kerosene ones) has been largely reduced (near eliminated) due to using heaters instead of insulation on the bipod and developing better foam application techniques (with other large rockets are likely to copy). If there is damage, and they don't feel safe reentering, the crew is to stay housed on ISS until a rescue mission can be launched. Even still, with a Why can the X-prize competitors do what they do
I tired of having to explain this every time, so I wrote Why SpaceShipOne Never Did, Never Will, And None Of Its Direct Descendants Ever Will, Orbit The Earth.. Read it first, and *then* we can discuss orbital spaceflight. If your hope is "private spaceflight", you're looking at the wrong spot. You need to look at companies actually going to orbit, like SpaceX.
"It felt almost as good as stealing cars from grandma." -- Margaret Thatcher, probably.
Let's not forget how many failed launches ended up in the Atlantic between the Cape and Africa in the 50's and 60's. Look at a map. Only Florida is south enough for the inertial assist to orbit from the Earth, and has several thousand miles of Ocean east of it.
One of the sad things about the new (yes I know, and needed) safety requirements is the daytime launch requirement. I have seen many night launches, both from inside of the Space Center and from my home 150 miles south, and they are beautiful. Shuttle launches light up the horizon like sunrise. I will miss the sight until NASA comes up with a new heavy lift vehicle.
Continental US, where it's easy to build gigantic things like rockets, and have the goods and materials shipped to you via train. Hawaii is only marginally more southern, only gives a couple extra MPH on an eastern launch, and is much more isolated.
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
Mexico has very significant oil reserves around the Yucatan peninsula and the Gulf of Mexico. It's of a slightly lower grade than the mideastern oil, but it's quite a bit of oil nonetheless.
Also keep in mind that by having mission control half way across the country, the engineers had to do some pioneering work in communications. Think of them as the first telecommuters. We take it for granted now, but in the 50's, there was not the communications infrastructure needed to do this.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
the ISS isn't in geosynchronous orbit, but in low-earth orbit. As such, it is constantly changing it's position WRT the ground. Once the shuttle reaches orbit, it has to "catch-up" with the ISS, or let the ISS catch-up with it. If ISS is hovering over China when the shuttle is over Florida, then that's a lot of energy it has to use (or a long wait) to reach the ISS. But if the ISS is near by during launch time, then it takes less fuel and time to reach. So yeah, it is that hard to meet up with the ISS
Free MacMini
Actually, the USA imports about 13% of it's imported oil (they have a lot themselves) from Mexico. Mexico is the 3rd largest source after Canada and Saudi Arabia.
What keeps me going is my inertia.
Considering the price of milk in Hawaii is about 3 times more than the continental states, I can't imagine what the cost of rocket fuel is there.
/. ++
There was also a hurricane near the prime recovery zone of Apollo 13 as well. That flight was loaded with lots of luck, apparently,. . .
The ISS is never hovering over China because it is never hovering over anywhere. It has an orbital period of 90 minutes. Thus it crosses the longitude of Cape Canaveral more than a dozen times every single day. The trick is in matching up the latitude.