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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...
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
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!
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!
"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."
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
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.