Atlantis Expected to Launch Today

PreacherTom writes "Following recent delays, NASA makes its fifth attempt to get Atlantis off the launchpad at 11:15 a.m. EDT today. NASA stopped Friday's launch try only 45 minutes before its scheduled departure for a faulty fuel tank sensor: the same glitch that thwarted two previous missions. The launch delay cost NASA $616,000, and if the mission is scrubbed again, the space agency must abandon for a few weeks its efforts to send the shuttle off on a construction mission to the International Space Station."

Comments

Gone

[Moby Cock]

I just watched it launch.

So...

[SanityInAnarchy]

They found a working ZPM?

I don't even like the show that much, but to me, Atlantis == Stargate, especially when I'm just waking up.

It went ok.

[catwh0re]

The launch went ok, only one issue with a support system for engine cooling (they were assuming there was water in it.) they cycled it and it's working fine. So it's all good for now.

huh ?

[terrymr]

-10 Timing.

Cheesy, but true

[bgfay]

I just sat at my laptop watching NASA TV (we don't have cable) with my four-year-old and two-year-old explaining as much of the activity as I knew. They got excited and kept gushing "wow!" just at the sight of the shuttle on the pad. When it lifted off, they were both quiet, eyes wide and mouths open. I caught myself with my own mouth open both at the wonder of us going into space and the equally powerful wonder of watching my daughters get this excited about it.

When someone asks me why we have to spend so much money on space exploration, I should have them watch a launch with my daughters. It's all about the thrill of exploration, the daring of it, the wonder of fellow humans climbing up off this planet and touching the stars.

I can't wait to see what we do next.

Re:Cheesy, but true

[jthill]

And why should the government be spending our tax dollars on "the thrill of exploration, the daring of it" and all that?

Because some things that nobody can make any money at are worth doing anyway? Because some of those are beyond the capacity of private enterprise? Because some of those actually produce benefits that would otherwise never be reached?

I *would* have watched it, but nobody covered it

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, sort of. I'm in the LA area - and only NBC gave even half-assed coverage of the launch (breaking away for a *very* short period, from an unbelievably moromic show for brain-damaged three year olds). All I caught of the launch was the solid rocket boosters falling away, and a few seconds more, before NBC went back to their normal programing. Of course, the awful NBC coverage was just *slightly* better than the coverage offered by the other area broadcasters in the area (who didn't cover the event AT ALL). It's too bad I can't pull all of their broadcast licenses - if I could, I would: dead air would be an improvement over the absolute garbage on television.

Liftoff!

[Eosha]

She made it into orbit successfully. Liftoff was at 11:14:55 Eastern time.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/launch/i ndex.html

Re:Cost?

[p_trekkie]

You mean the delay cost of $500,000 or so? That number is suspiciously similar to the cost of the fuel/launch, so my guess is that's what they had to pay to empty the shuttle, then fill it again. That amount of money is also accounted for in NASA as a "rouding error." In my aerospace classes, they always told us that for cost accounting, fuel is "free."

Re:I *would* have watched it, but nobody covered i

[accessdeniednsp]

NASA TV always has it available. www.nasa.gov and it's a link on the main page. You need RealPlayer or Windows Media Player. It streams the whole thing including the Mission Control guy's narration.

Re:I *would* have watched it, but nobody covered i

[Moby Cock]

That's a shame. I watch the whole thing on CBC Newsworld. Odd that foreign countries are more interested in the space programs than America.

/. editor to try again to make launch date

[davidwr]

"Following recent delays, CowboyNeal makes its Nth attempt to get a timely Atlantis story off the launchpad before it goes stale. He missed Wednesday's news by almost 2 days and will try to get the announcement of Saturdays launch posted on time. The delay costs CowboyNeal 3 karma points, and if he misses the mark again, the Space Cowboy must abandon editing few weeks while he lets his karma recover.
UPDATED: Sat 11:22AM: He missed the mark.... Again."

Cynical, but true

[SuperBanana]

When someone asks me why we have to spend so much money on space exploration, I should have them watch a launch with my daughters. It's all about the thrill of exploration, the daring of it, the wonder of fellow humans climbing up off this planet and touching the stars.

Um...not to be cynical, and Slashdotters hate being reminded of these things, but your daughters are in awe because they don't know that:

• It costs $16BN a year to keep NASA running of which $3BN is political pork, and a fair bit goes towards research which is primarily for the purposes of weapons and has nothing to do with the "quest for knowledge".
• The ISS, which this mission supports, is falling apart after just a few years in space. It was supposed to last JUST 10 years after final assembly, and it hasn't even been fully assembled. Failures have ranged from oxygen generators to basic handtools to attitude correction gyros. The price tag was $100BN; that money largely went to our nation's (and other nation's) defense contractors, which build the majority of the hardware NASA uses.
• The "smoke" from the solid rocket engines contains huge amounts of hydrochloric acid.
• One in five of their classmates go hungry at home or at school because their parents can't afford to give them enough food, and the government currently spends slightly more than NASA's budget to feed 7 million children a year a decent lunch. Let's not even get started about basic supply and book shortages. We're supposedly the most powerful nation in the world, but we can't but enough [food in the stomachs / textbooks in the hands] of our children so that they can recieve a sufficient education to support themselves later in life, instead of ending up working at Walmart for minimum wage.

Personally, I don't find any thrill in NASA's "exploration", which seems to consist mostly of "let's see what _______ does in space" and the nation's military and scientific elite (yes, military- many of the people you see up there are military officers) playing. There is no "daring" (save the small chance their shuttle will be destroyed) and they're not touching any stars.

Re:Cynical, but true

[topical_surfactant]

Then, of course, there's the argument that if we don't get off this rock and colonize other (planets, moons), some day those problems you just mentioned will seem trivial compared to the immenent extinction of the human race. Just sayin'.

Re:Cynical, but true

[cptgrudge]

I'm going to be cynical of your post here, troll, just FYI. There's a reason I view at +5 to Troll, and not just because some of them are funny. Someone might read your points and accept them at face value if there is no counter. Unlikely, but I will address them. Mods, give the parent +1 Underrated. A true +5 Troll is rare, and the points should be addressed, not lost below threshold.

It costs $16BN a year to keep NASA running of which $3BN is political pork, and a fair bit goes towards research which is primarily for the purposes of weapons and has nothing to do with the "quest for knowledge".

Yes, $16 billion dollars is a Big number. But the total 2007 budget for the US Government is 2.77 trillion. NASA's budget is a bit under 0.6% of the total. That is nothing. The pork contained in the budget is not just NASA's problem, but is a problem across the entire US Gov budget. Fix it there. Now, can you list the research items contained in NASA's budget that go toward the sole purpose of weapons? I need sources. Besides, you can turn anything into a weapon if you try hard enough. I can give you many examples that have helped in our "quest for knowledge" if you want them.

The ISS, which this mission supports, is falling apart after just a few years in space. It was supposed to last JUST 10 years after final assembly, and it hasn't even been fully assembled. Failures have ranged from oxygen generators to basic handtools to attitude correction gyros. The price tag was $100BN; that money largely went to our nation's (and other nation's) defense contractors, which build the majority of the hardware NASA uses.

Falling apart? Sources please. As far as I know, the ISS is not falling from the sky, but has been manned and operational (albeit with a reduced crew), and construction is now moving forward. Individual component failures are not unexpected. Space is hard. People seem to have this idea that we just pop up there every once in a while, hang around for a few weeks, and come back down. We're escaping our planet's gravity well, and building a huge complex outside of it in a harsh environment. This environment is a hard vacuum, filled with radiation, and has no gravity. It's like building a cruise ship in the middle of a choppy ocean, without a dock or support, only little boats. You're upset about some repairable component failures? As to the price tag...so what? 100 billion spread out over the project timeline isn't that much. What does it matter which companies got the contract to build it, as long as it is completed to spec? It isn't like these "defense contractors" are pure evil; they employ people that build things.

The "smoke" from the solid rocket engines contains huge amounts of hydrochloric acid.

I'll give you this one. Yes, it sucks. But in the larger picture, the damage it is doing is nothing compared to the current global levels of pollution. If there was a feasible method that involved zero pollution, I'm sure we would use it. The simple fact is, any fuel we have right now that provides enough thrust to escape the gravity of Earth will give off some pollution. We'll never be able to find cleaner alternatives if we don't do this research in the first place. This actually is rocket science. (Hey, at least we don't use an Orion Drive, which is theoretically cheap by comparison, but gives off a bunch of nuclear fallout, right?)

One in five of their classmates go hungry at home or at school because their parents can't afford to give them enough food, and the government currently spends slightly more than NASA's budget to feed 7 million children a year a decent lunch. Let's not even get started about basic supply and book shortages. We're supposedly the most powerful nation in the world, but we can't but enough [food in the stomachs / textbooks in the hands] of our children so that they can recieve a sufficient education to support themselves later in life, i

Re:Cost?

[cyclone96]

At best, it's a very rough estimate indeed. I don't understand why every story about a launch delay seems to have to include "it cost $XXX" for the delay. They do the same thing for landings at Edwards (which requires transporting the orbiter back to KSC on the NASA 747). Those costs are expected and budgeted for, and in the overall scheme of things - quite small.

While we are at it, the genius that wrote the article also included the following:

If Atlantis cannot lift off on Saturday, it will have to wait at least until late September and even then, NASA will have to waive a post-Sept. 11 rule that says launches must be conducted in daylight so that the spaceship can be photographed for signs of damage.

Post Sept. 11? WTF? That's post COLUMBIA ACCIDENT rule. Wow, that's really bad. Evidentally the news drone at ABC churning out web stories must have been working on a Sept. 11 anniversary piece about the same time and mixed up his disasters....