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NASA Probes Shuttle Oxygen Leak

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the getting-started-with-a-bang-not-necessarily-a-good-thing dept.

Cherita Chen writes "NASA is investigating the possibility of a gaseous oxygen leak, posing a serious fire risk, during the launch of the space shuttle Discovery in July. From the article: 'Engineers uncovered possible evidence of high concentrations of the gas in the rear engine compartment about two minutes after lift-off. A leak could lead to a fire or even an explosion in flight.'"

1 of 150 comments (clear)

  1. Scuttle the Shuttle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The shuttle program has run its course, it's too complicated to maintain and operate, unreliable and countless times, astronauts, engineers have said it that it would have been more cost effective and safer to just use re-usable expendable rockets. The irony is Nasa probably had hints about this back in the 80's and only now 20+ year's later are the heading to the drawing board to come up with a replacemnet. NASA lost it's forward thinking ability after the moon landings... We need maybe one or two smaller versions with forward thinking individuals..