Shuttle Delayed Due to Cloudy Skies

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."

Comments

Good luck to them

[janek78]

I hope they get home safe. When I read about the ISS positioning itself for the first time in two years thanks to the gyros repaired/replaced by Discovery, I realised how amazing this mission was. Not just a prove that shuttles can fly again. MISSE experiment, supplies to ISS, repair works, a new platform. What an achievement! Kudos to all involved. Good luck coming home.

Re:I can't wait

[PunkOfLinux]

And then you'll keep hearing about how it safely returned/blew up in mid-air. So, either way, it's gonna go on for a long time.

They are sh*ting their pants

[guruevi]

TFA: The cloud cover, although within NASA's safety limits for landing, was enough to make mission controllers uncomfortable about attempting a Monday touchdown in Florida. They must be really scared. Whole mission long they are scared to land, scared to do this and that because of the previous accident. Get over it! Space is dangerous and if you are scared, don't go there, there are enough chinese/russians/europeans to go there without that fear.

Re:They are sh*ting their pants

[Silver Sloth]

This isn't a matter of fear - it's a matter of managing perceived risk/benefits. If the shuttle were to crash again it would be a massive PR disaster - as well as somewhat upsetting for the loved ones of those who would die who know and accept the risks

To give an analogy - if I drive around the block rather than make a dangerous turning then I'm a safe and carefull driver - not a coward.

Re:Shoulda gone Canadian

[Chaotic Spyder]

pff Survivors in Toronto's crash last week 100% survivors in NASA's last crash 0%...

not trying to start a flame war here.. But seriously I don't understand how people can not take the fact that when a plane crashes and blows up and EVERYBODY survives it's a good thing...(chalk one up to the engneers who designed the plane so people could get out fast enough) why does the media have to paint such an evil picture on everything?

So NASA waits a day to land.. good for them.. God knows what will happen to NASA if shit happens to this shuttle...

It has always been like this

[jurt1235]

A bit of not perfect weather and the shuttle can not launch or touch down, nothing new here.
Ofcourse they are more nervous, if they have a disaster, it will be the shuttles last flight, and with no new crew launch vehicle ready, the chance that NASA will loose a big part of its funding is very realistic, because why would they need so much money if they can not bring people and equipment to the spacestation anyway (That is the political question, not mine!!).

Anyway: We can ask the Japanese to build a huge hand http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/ 08/0411205&tid=216&tid=126 which can catch an object the size of the space shuttle. They already have the speed about right (shuttle lands with about 270MPH(??))

Re:Shoulda gone Canadian

[Redrover5545]

There's a saying in the airplane industry expressing that idea:

Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.

Re:How long?

[Flounder]

They should have purchased that cloud insurance. You just know those clouds are planning something.

Re:Rain can damage the tiles.

[imsabbel]

I wonder...
Rain usually only happens at altutudes lower than 5km. At that point, the tiles have already fullfilled their purpose, and eventuall cracking/damage shouldnt alter the shuttles ability to land.

Too much second guessing?

[John Seminal]

I remember back in the 70's and 80's when test pilots for the air force flew fighterjets that were considered "unstable" and the air force wanted to test different designs. The common understanding was, there is a greater chance of it crashing than landing. Yet, many good pilots wanted the chance to fly. What motivated them even when they knew there was a greater chance of crashing than landing?

There are some jobs that are very dangerous.

Can man make a shuttle that is perfect, that will never have a mishap? Does anyone know the statistsics, of how many launches and how many crashes? I am just guessing, but I would think NASA has an over 90% success rate. If that was my college physics class, I would be jumping up and down with joy. It is not like these astronauts took "physics for poets". They studied their topics in great detail, and they know it.

Getting back to my analogy. If the old air force test fighter pilot program had a failure rate over 50%, and NASA is under 10% failure (just a guess), then perhaps what is needed is a new understanding. Congress did not shut down the test pilot program because of accidents, it was considered too important. What is NASA? Eye candy? Do they want to put on a show, where the first injury causes a shut down? Or do they want to explore space, learn, and understand there will be terrible accidents along the way.

There is a great quote NASA should try and understand better. Life is the master teacher. Unfortunatly, it gives the tests first, and the lessons second.

Re:Too much second guessing?

[DerekLyons]

I remember back in the 70's and 80's when test pilots for the air force flew fighterjets that were considered "unstable" and the air force wanted to test different designs. The common understanding was, there is a greater chance of it crashing than landing. Yet, many good pilots wanted the chance to fly. What motivated them even when they knew there was a greater chance of crashing than landing?

There are some jobs that are very dangerous.

That's true - but it's only half the story.

While they accepted the tests as dangerous - they didn't go out of their way to make them more dangerous. If the weather was bad - the flight didn't take place. If the hydraulic system on the plane was iffy - the flight didn't take place. etc.. etc...

Can man make a shuttle that is perfect, that will never have a mishap? Does anyone know the statistsics, of how many launches and how many crashes? I am just guessing, but I would think NASA has an over 90% success rate. If that was my college physics class, I would be jumping up and down with joy.

In the flight test business a sucess rate of only 90% would be considered an utter failure. (Even in the 1950's when the crash rate was at it's highest while we were trying to get a handle on jet engines, supersonic flight, new stability problems etc... etc..) Contrary to popular belief Flight Test isn't about flying in the face of risk - it's about calculated acceptance of risk. Killing pilots teaches you nothing and wastes a trained pilot.

There is a great quote NASA should try and understand better. Life is the master teacher. Unfortunatly, it gives the tests first, and the lessons second.

When it comes to iffy weather and aviation, the tests and lessons were completed decades ago. NASA waved off the landing oppurtunity because those lessons are long learned. ("Landing in iffy weather kills - don't do it if avoidable.")

The Folks at Edwards Have Their Fingers Crossed

[aquatone282]

I know the people at Edwards AFB are hoping for a divert to their location.

I was stationed at Edwards when STS-111 landed there after several days of bad weather in Florida.

We piled into the shop truck and drove up to the ridge that overlooks the runway and Rodgers dry lake. We parked at an optical tracking station, which was up and running. The camera operator gave us a bearing to the northwest, towards Santa Barbara, to watch for the shuttle.

We knew it was inbound when the camera began tracking. It was just a speck, but within seconds it was overhead and the double sonic boom was impressive even by Edwards' standards, where sonic booms are an almost daily occurance.

It passed overhead and turned once, landing flawlessly on runway 22. From first sighting to touchdown was only fifteen to twenty seconds.

Later that day, after pre-flighting a jet, we drove out to the taxiway to get a closer look at Endeavour.

We almost made it before Security Forces chased us down and told us to get the heck out of there. In retrospect, we were lucky we didn't spend an hour or two face down on the concrete.

Hey, clouds can be dangerous!

[elrous0]

Sure, they may not seem like much. But the last crew died because of a piece of foam.

Time to start sending our engineers to Russia to learn a thing or two about resilent design.

-Eric

Re:*SPOILER ALERT*

[outlineblue]

well tuesday and wednesday sound good, but thurday should read as following:

Thursday August 11th 2005: Crew not responding. Presumed dead from lack of oxygen.

Re:So what do they do now?

[wasted time]

According to the commentator on NASA TV, they have about 4 hours of shutdown procedures to go through after a wave off. They shutdown many onboard systems to conserve power. They also reposition the shuttle to an inverted attitude again so that the underside of the orbiter faces the sun. This is to keep the temperature of the tires and landing gear up prior to reentry. They will reverse all procedures one again 4 hours prior to the next landing window.

Re:Rain can damage the tiles.

[dildatron]

The shuttle is a glider. They have one change to land, unpowered. Better to be conservative.

Re:Clouds Delayed Due to Shuttle Landing

[njchick]

You'll have to move to Soviet Russia for that.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:More accurate headlines please

[thehemi]

Attributing the delay to timidity, a publicity stunt, or wanting better photographic conditions is just stupid. Although I could absolutely understand why they would want to delay the landing until better conditions for photographic reasons. I'm sure NASA has thousands of variables they want to monitor and watch during the landing and having high resolution photographs of the shuttle in-flight are probably part of that data. Look how important photography is on take-off? I can only assume it's almost as important on landing.