Slashdot Mirror
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.
STS-121 Mission Status Center - 'nuff said.
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
I'm almost surprised they even decided to proceed to the point that they did today (the hold with T-9 minutes to go). Standing on the ground at Kennedy, if you looked West, the sky was almost black with storm clouds over the runway at the Shuttle landing faciliity. You know, the one that needs to be clear for the Shuttle to land if there's an emergency? Seems like a bit of a waste.
Just my two cents.
In soviet russia, You ask not what country do for you, but what you do for country!
Oh wait...
If it eventually goes up successfully July 4 it'll either be a triumph or a complete PR disaster. I'm sure the engineers and administrators are taking this into account.
I hope the person responsible for the current 'go' decision can be held criminally responsible if things do go wrong.
Of course, the paranoid might think that this is somewhat intentional as a number of republicans would probably like to get in on private industry taking over NASA role in space exploration.
(Too bad there is no money in space right now.)
Two people who are obviously very high up on the pecking order around there say, "No-go," and and yet it's still decided the shuttle is going to launch. Is it just me, or are we asking for another disaster?
"Earlier Saturday mission managers decided a problem with a thermostat in one of Discovery's thrusters, which was showing a reading in the 80s when it should have been in the 60s, was not dangerous and it could be fixed once the shuttle was in orbit."
Given the fact that foam striking the side of the Columbia during takeoff wasn't considered dangerous, I'm suprised they didn't stop to recheck everything before hand. 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. You could say "it could never happen", but try and tell that to the crews of the Changeller and the Columbia.
This signature was left intentionally blank.
Here is the link to the radar image for Melbourne, Florida
I'm close enough to see the space shots, and there were some storms west of the Cape this afternoon, a few more out to sea. Forecast for tomorrow is less of a chance of thunderstorms in the area and downrange.
I have my thermos of coffee ready. "I always have coffee when I view radar". (Dark Helmet, Spaceballs.)
Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com
Whats "lauch"?
Seriously, Slashdot is read by millions of people and yet it lacks the basic courtesy and professionalism that any media outlet should have. How can this thing be taken seriously?
If the chief safety officer can't cancel a launch due to safety concerns, what's the point of having a chief safety officer?
The details in the Slashdot posting are slightly incorrect. Todays/yesterdays launch (the scheduled on on the 1st of July) was postponed at T-9minutes after a 40 minute scheduled hold (if it's scheduled, why didn't they add it into the count down?) and approximately 3 minutes of 5 into an "extended hold" (after they "polled" all the various sections of the launch team). Then the decision was made the "scrub" (abort) the launch due the weather being too unpredictable and there being storm clouds (anvil clouds) within 20 miles of the emergency landing strip (although they have got backup landing strips in France and Spain). They will retry the launch tomorrow, and can abort for any reason up to 31 seconds before main ignition.
At the moment, they are still "go" for the launch tomorrow.
BTW: You learn a lot from watching the live stream on nasa.gov!
So if the engineer says no, and the safety officer says no then who is saying yes? Whose opinion could be more important than these two people?
Philosophy.
Duncan McLauchlin "Lauch" Faircloth (born 14 January 1928), served as a Republican U.S. Senator from North Carolina.
Before his Senate service, Faircloth was a prominent and wealthy hog farmer. One impetus for his political activism was his disagreement with the increasing regulations targeting large hog farming operations such as his, fueled by an environmentalist and populist backlash.
Faircloth once joked that he wanted to be known as the conservative senator from North Carolina. Since the state's other seat was held by Jesse Helms, that may be seen as an indication of his ideological proclivities.
25 years of this program and with nothing to show for it. It's getting damned embarrassing and is really starting to reflect America as the stagnant dying empire it is.
...dying empire...
Really. And has anyone else on the planet done any better? Going into space is hard, if you haven't noticed.
The Russians? Ok, they can launch Soyuz. Literally, a taxi. 3 people and not much else.
The Chinese? Recreating a 40 year old, 1 man orbital flight.
Commercial efforts so far? Almost, but not quite, recreating a 57 year old X-15 flight, courtesy of a couple of very rich angels. Commercial efforts will get there, but not anytime soon. Gotta satisfy those shareholders.
You got anything better?
Personally, I believe that any delays, scrubs, cancelations and PR disasters at this point can only help space exploration as a whole. No, of course I don't want to see another shuttle go up in flames with the loss of anoter crew, but a PR disaster in the form of an indefinite launch hold is another story. Sadly, I think that political and budgetary pressures will force this shuttle up, ready or not.
With the hard date set for the retirement of the current shuttle fleet, I think NASA is wasting its efforts and budget on the dying program instead of trying develop alternate space vehicles faster. (Of course, I admittedly know very little about NASA budgetary constraints. For all I know, they may be forced by congress to use that part of their budget on the shuttle fleet or lose it. I've seen beurocracy do sillier things.) Doing so may be the only way to revitalize a space program that's been in decline since the end of the cold war.
However, like many, I believe that the real future of space travel lies in the private sector. With privately-funded quasi-space-progams like Virgin Galactic (is that what it's called?) which may someday fund private research and exploration (all in the name of commerce, of course, as opposed to pure science or strategic advantage), and state-funded programs failing to keep up, what other course could there be?
Of course, this is just be rambling, feel free to tell me I'm full of it. But this is the way I see it: private space progams will continue to make space travel more affordable and accessable, and that can only be a good thing in the long run.
So I figure the "no go" was a combination of CYA and posturing for influence. The chance of a failure is miniscule, but if something does happen to go wrong, their asses are covered by being on the record as objecting to the launch. Also, if a failure does happen, there's a good chance that someone will need to fill the vacant offices of the folks who overruled them.
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
In other words, the CSO probably can only approve if an unreasonable (for what they have) level of safety is achieved. Hence, they are likely to be ignored because their requirements cannot be met.
If the launch has to be cancelled Sunday because of weather, it will be pushed to Tuesday. This seems like a spectacularly bad idea. It would be a while before any forgot the billion dollar firework on independence day.
NPR's Morning Edition did an interesting articleon June 22 about the impending launch:
y Id=5503182
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?stor
They interview the two senior officials who have reservations about the launch. What I found most interesting were the odds that one NASA employee mentions, which are definitely in favor of the launch and mission succeeding based upon the track record of the shuttles. Yes, it's a dangerous mission and NASA cannot guarantee that falling foam will not damage the shuttle, but in the hundred plus launches only two shuttles have been lost, which isn't a bad track record. However, from the sound of the article, NASA is ready to finish the planned missions and be done with the shuttles. Definitely worth a listen.
End of Line
No, they're not launching at 3AM; they slipped all the way to Sunday afternoon.
Why the Japanese? They don't have much of a space program and certainly no manned vehicle. The US and Russia are far ahead in that respect and currently only the Russians have a relatively high frequency manned vehicle (the Soyuz).
The Russians are a different story, but even there, I think the Soyuz and Proton aren't launched in sufficient volume and they have limited access to equator launch sites (Sea Launch being a notable exception).
My take is that we really don't have proper access to space, mostly due to low launch frequency.I assume you're actually speaking about Columbia, not the Discovery that's going to launch this week?
Don't sell SpaceX quite so short -- they've attempted one *orbital* launch, and will be trying again in a couple months. There's good reason to believe it will work -- the failure was a procedural one, not a design one, and they've added multiple checks to prevent it and similar problems. The current rocket (Falcon 1) is a small TSTO semi-expendable launcher; they have a larger Falcon 9 and some variants also already in production, and a much larger rocket (codename: BFR) and manned (!) capsule in development. I'd lay better than even money they repeat the Sputnik flight (with a useful payload) this year, and even money they do a manned launch in 5.
Commercial will get there, it's just a matter of putting enough investment in to get to the point that there's a market, and SpaceX has already sold 10 launches -- strongly suggesting that there is in fact a market for better, cheaper, more reliable vehicles.
Maybe I'm just naïve (I hardly think so), but I think if you're getting your information about the Shuttle launch and in-flight status solely from news media, you're most certainly not getting the whole story. Last year, there was a news conference after another chunk of foam came off the shuttle (after all the precautions that they went through to prevent it), with all the experts showing the evidence and explaining it. As usual, they opened it up to questions at the end. The question was along the lines of, "Are the remaining missions grounded until this is resolved?" The response was similar to, "Of course the remaining missions are delayed until we figure out what went wrong here again." Despite all of the content of the news conference (which I personally watched in its entirety), the headlines in the newspapers in the next day were, "Shuttle Fleet Grounded". All of the media made it into a much bigger deal than it actually was. Of course they're not going to send more shuttles into space after a reoccurance of what they thought they fixed without reanalyzing the situation (again).
Before you make any comments about the operations of NASA, I suggest you actually follow the status of the mission. NASA TV and Spaceflight Now should be your primary sources. NASA has a multitude of experts, each focussing on a particular area of expertise. Each one gives their opinion on "go/no-go" at various stages of the mission. Today's scrub was based solely on the weather.
Actually the Japanese have a kickass space program. No manned stuff, but they have quite a few space telescopes and other missions like asteroid rendevous do some great science. Hayabusa, Suzaku, Akari - some very cool stuff.
Ok, my wife is a former NASA engineer, and used to be one of the top folks with actual go/no go decision (her specialty was hypergolics). Here's some of what she wrote after yesterday's attempt (and if the language bothers you, tough: she's ex-Navy ):
************
For the record, speaking as someone who can see the goddamn launch pads from
my roof: there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the last lightning had been
over four hours ago (gave me an excuse to quit mowing), and the nearest drop
of rain was in west Orlando, some fifty or sixty miles away.
I was a member of the "go / no-go" team during Return To Flight in 1988.
There was no hesitation or wimpiness in our hours of pre-poll discussion, and
when Safety was called on during the poll, we all but cheered and danced
yelling "GO!" You could cut the tension with a damascus sword, but there was
no greasy sweat and shifty eyes.
Friday, I made a snide prediction to the local paper: they were gong to count
down to the built-in T-9 minute hold and sit there until they got a weather
excuse. I should have made it for money, but there would not have been many
takers among the spaceflight-savvy. It's practically a ritual.
I'll go out on a limb on this one, since I'm up against the bushitsta's "You
WILL launch so George can give his speech and distract attention from the
Iraq disaster" orders, but if they have anyone with any balls at all on the
launch team, this time they'll count down to the five minute mark and call it
off after a five-minute hold on some computer-glitch excuse. (At T-5, they
start the APU recorders, which puts them on an MFP -- the APUs are strictly
limited on run time.)
(Sorry, MFP isn't in the NASA handbook. That's Major Fuckup Point.)
Then they'll try again on July 4th, just for #$%!ing show. Goddess of fire,
protect the astronauts. But it wouldn't break my heart if John Ellis and
company were doing a photo-op on Monday and a tetroxide valve blew.
************
it ain't the weather they're afraid of. That's their EXCUSE.
Put it this way -- the ten minutes of cross-chat I bothered to listen to
sounded like full-blown panic. "O-ten-six is a negative" means nothing to
anyone who hasn't worked countdown, but what that means is THEY COULD NOT GET
A SENSOR RESPONSE FROM THE MAIN ENGINE TURBINES. As in, the fucking engines
weren't saying yes or no as to whether they would even turn on. Flood a
system with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen and hit the "on" button, and if
the turbines don't spin up, you have a very large bomb with the fuse burning
down fast.
And that was only ONE of the "re-check" (means "no fucking response") calls
that I heard, and I only bothered to turn on the TV to win a bet.
Rain and lightning here as of 0900. Clear sky by noon. Bets on the T-5 stall
still better than a lotto ticket.