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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.
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...
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.
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If the chief safety officer can't cancel a launch due to safety concerns, what's the point of having a chief safety officer?
Uhm...might wanna recheck some things. Republicans are the ones that were responsible for that little lying punk NASA PR guy that demanded Big Bang info be removed from the NASA sites and replaced with right wing fundamentalist creationism stuff. If its intentional, its because they view space as having no value because god is coming back for us right here, and soon.
Personally...I think the greatest irony would be God, Jesus and friends standing on some remote place far on the other side of creation saying "Geeze dad, I woulda thought they could have made it here by now..."
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
No pr disaster if things go wrong; they can simply say that it was an elaborate fireworks display!
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
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.
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?
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.
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.