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Shuttle Delayed Due to Cloudy Skies

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the pins-and-needles dept.

PunkOfLinux writes "The shuttle won't be coming down until Tuesday, due to a decision by NASA that the weather was not good enough for re-entry. After the first two attempts, at around 4:45 and 6:25 this morning, NASA called off today's landing."

5 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Level of care by tadmas · · Score: 2, Informative

    Are they being ultra-careful with this, or is this just normal-careful?

    I think they're being ultra-careful. From what I've heard, they would normally land in these conditions.

    However, they really don't want to take a chance. Imagine if something did go wrong: the public outcry would be so big that it would virtually mean the end of manned space flight for a very long time, and that's not something NASA wants to risk.

  2. Re:NASA is afraid of... FLUFFY, FLUFFY CLOUDS !!! by Guppy06 · · Score: 3, Informative

    If you were going to be in an unpowered descent through a vertical distance of around 250 miles (not to mention the horizontal distance), you'd be a little concerned, too.

    Here in nearby Daytona Beach, we've been having near-daily thunderstorms. The clouds caused the abort of the landing because, once you do your deorbit burn, Houston can't say "Oh, wait, it's raining now, better turn around and go back into orbit."

  3. Re:Lemme make sure I've got this right... by pondlife · · Score: 2, Informative

    You're talking only about visibility, but clouds do more than just block your line of sight - they're often associated with air turbulence and various (possibly nasty) forms of precipitation, including icing.

    Bearing in mind that the Shuttle glides in to land, and has no way to go around (ie abort the landing and go around for a second attempt), that means you only have one chance to get it right. So things like cloud cover, wind direction etc will affect the Shuttle much more than they would an aircraft, which can fly around bad weather, land at any number of alternate sites etc.

    p.

  4. Re:Daytime landing preferred. by wasted+time · · Score: 2, Informative
    Not so. According to Wayne Hale, Space Shuttle Deputy Program Manager, most of the shuttle commanders prefer night landings due to generally better weather conditions and less distraction from visual stimuli on approach. He made this statement while responding to a query from a reporter during a press briefing at the Johnson Space Center.

    The reporter phrased his question in a way that made it sound like NASA had intentionally scheduled a night landing to avoid a live televised disaster. What a prick. Hale responded that landing windows are a technical decision based on orbit and not something that they could just pick for convince.

    --
    The Stone Age did not end because humans ran out of stones. - William McDonough
  5. More accurate headlines please by mbeckman · · Score: 5, Informative

    I expect dopey headlines from the traditional media, but Slashdot should do better. Announcing "Shuttle Delayed Due to Cloudy Skies" is like saying "Airliner Crash Due to Ticket Sales." The headline incorrectly gives the impression that the weather problem is not significant. Cloudy skies are not the issue -- the shuttle lands with cloudy skies all the time. The issue is unstable weather with low ceilings (as low as 500 feet). This is a much more serious condition, as any pilot can confirm. For the shuttle these are marginal conditions. They require conducting the landing under instrument flight rules, with the possibiity of losing visibility just before touchdown. At the shuttle's high speeds, this is much more serious than for commercial aviation. Attributing the delay to timidity, a publicity stunt, or wanting better photographic conditions is just stupid.