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Shuttle Launch Delayed
fizzix writes "Weather has delayed the launch of Discovery to tomorrow (Sunday the 2nd), but not everyone thinks it is ready to go. CNN reports both the chief engineer and the chief safety officer gave it a 'no go' for launch. Despite their reservations, barring inclement weather the shuttle is planned to liftoff at 3:26 ET." Update: 07/02 05:00 GMT by Z : I said launch not lauch. Fixed headline.
I was looking for a good streaming video of the launch in a F/OSS-friendly format, but I couldn't find one - NASA was Wmv/QT/Real, BBC was Real/Wmv. Does anyone know a good source of a shuttle launch stream that's in a free format like mpeg or theora?
Thankfully, Ubuntu made it easy to add a extra repository and install RealPlayer 10 in less than 10 minutes. Just in time to catch them scrub the launch.
"When it comes down to rechecking everything and delaying the mission for a little longer vs. the millions lost and the following PR hit, the answer pretty obvious."
The obvious answer here is that the president is really, really desperate for PR. There's no good reason for NASA to launch the shuttle over the July Fourth holiday weekend - but to a president who has sent over 2500 of his own troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis to their deaths, risking the lives of a handful of astronauts is nothing if there's a chance it will make people feel patriotic and boost the presidential approval ratings a little bit more.
Anyone who doesn't think that the Bush administration isn't pushing around NASA scientists for political gain needs only look at this launch to see what's really going on.