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NASA Scrubs Launch Due to Faulty Fuel-Tank Sensor
VUSE g-EE-k writes "NASA has scrubbed Wednesday's launch of Discovery due to a faulty fuel-tank sensor in the external fuel tank. They are going to begin the troubleshooting process. They have not released details as to how long this delay will last. The crew have begun to get off the shuttle. For more information, see the NASA TV site. Drudge Report has some initial coverage of the scrub."
Reader adefa adds a link to NASA's Space Shuttle launch page with more info.
True, back in the 60's in the Apollo days, they tested the bejezus out of everything; that's because they were pushing stuff to almost beyond what technology of the time would do, and they had to have the best of the best to have a chance in hell of pulling off the mission.
They just don't have the budget for that now. I think they just ignored a lot of stuff and got lucky most of the time. They are going to be super-careful this time; they can NOT afford a failure on this launch.
Remember when the air force told NASA to expect something like 1 in 20 missions to blow up, because that was their record with SRBs? NASA has been doing WAY better than that.
These days they're scrubbing when they notice something outside of nominal. I'm happy they are. The Challenger was lost when they were operating outside of nominal and figured they could get away with it. After that event, investigations showed that they were ignoring a WHOLE LOT of stuff. I keep hoping they'll stop ignoring their own rules; we'll see.