Shuttle Launch Postponed To July 4th

mkosmo writes "NASA has yet again delayed Space Shuttle Discovery from launching due to growing weather conditions. Next launch attempt is the afternoon of the 4th of July." From the article: "Windows of opportunity are determined by the path of the orbiting international space station, the shuttle's destination. With each passing day, the time for a launch gets earlier by 22-1/2 minutes. That could be good news for NASA because summer thunderstorms are less likely to be a problem earlier in the day."

Comments

Re:So

[cooley]

The "space program" doesn't end in 2010, the "shuttle program" is scheduled to be over in 2010. Folks are working on other vehicles to take over. Also yes, other countries (Russia) can make trips to the ISS also.

Of course, the shuttle can take a much, much larger payload than anything else currently available (I think).

lightning is the problem .. Re:In Soviet USA ..

[rs232]

"Shuttle has to worry about rain because .."

It isn't rain but lightning that is the problem. The column of ionized gases ejected from a vehicle in assent is highly conductive and makes for a very good earth. Apollo 12 was hit twice in just such an incident. The strike affected the parachute deployment system among other things. They didn't know for sure if it would actually work until the final moments of the descent.