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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."

12 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. Shoulda gone Canadian by ndg123 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I hear they don't mind you landing in bad weather north of the border.

    1. Re:Shoulda gone Canadian by Mark+Hood · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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

      And the second half of the saying is: "and if the 'plane can be used again, it was a GREAT landing."

      Mark

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  2. Good luck to them by janek78 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. Better safe than sorry by Crixus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's certainly better to be safe than sorry. And NASA is certainly going to be extra careful on this, the first launch after the accident, but I wonder if they would have landed in these conditions before?

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  4. Guess I chose the wrong day by Silver+Sloth · · Score: 5, Funny

    to give up glue sniffing

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  5. Yeah, but I bet they're trying to make something u by interstellar_donkey · · Score: 4, Funny

    Right now the astronauts are sitting in the shuttle, wondering when it's going to land. NASA has probably given them some B.S. story about 'technical difficultys' and passing out free headphones so the passengers can watch the crummy in flight movie.

    Hopefully, some of those astronauts will make a fuss and get their next ticket for free, or, at the very least NASA will upgrade them to 1st class when (and if) they chose to fly NASA again.

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  6. Why the mission has been so eventuful by psyklopz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Most would likely agree that this mission has been more 'eventful' than many in the past. And I'm sure most would agree that the general public (if they care at all) are getting more and more of a feeling that the shuttle 'just isn't doing it for me anymore'.

    And that may be exactly the point.

    Now, granted, NASA wants a safe mission. But several of these problems may have simply been overlooked in the past because space exploration is inherently dangerous anyway, so some risks are accepable.

    There is actual politcal value in a mission that seems plagued with problems. I'm getting the general feeling from the media that it's almost all NASA can do to get this thing up in the air one more time.

    If enough people get the same feeling, NASA could seem very justifiable to request mroe money for a shuttle replacement. And maybe that's the real goal of this mission.

    that's my conspiracy theory for the day :)

  7. Rain can damage the tiles. by Shivetya · · Score: 4, Interesting

    NASA did some testing with a P3 Orion to study the effect.

    http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/P-3/HTML/EC 87-0035-001.html

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  8. What to do? by Johnny+Mnemonic · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Can anyone point me to a link that describes what the astronauts do with this extra day in orbit? Considering the expense of getting them there, I find it hard to believe that they just sit around for this extra day picking their nose and farting, but it would seem like all of the experiments would have already been stowed.

    Can they make use of this extra day?

    On a related note, I'm well aware that the astronauts have plenty of air+power+water+food for this extra day, but how long could they actually stay in orbit before one of those things ran out? Just curious; mostly to know how conservatively these things are planned.

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    1. Re:What to do? by cdrudge · · Score: 4, Funny

      Today is the day they get to shoot lots of file footage. The old stock video of them throwing a carrot across the room as a "missle", bubbles of water floating around, and running on a treadmill while nearly weightless were starting to get data. They also get to bug the commander with "Are we there yet? Are we there yet?"

  9. To add insult to injury.... by Monkey+Angst · · Score: 4, Funny

    The Moon People keep holding up "If you lived here, you'd be home now" signs every time the shuttle swings by.

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  10. 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.