Endeavour Rolled Out As Rescue Ship

stoolpigeon writes "The space shuttle Endeavour was rolled out to Launch Pad 39B yesterday. Space shuttle Atlantis is already at Launch Pad 39A, being made ready for the STS-125 mission to repair Hubble. We recently got a look at some behind-the-scenes photos for this mission. Endeavour is now in place to act as a rescue vehicle if there are any problems with Atlantis, once they are in space. This is the first time one shuttle has been prepared to act as a rescue vehicle for another. If all goes well for STS-125, Endeavour will move over to 39A to be used for STS-126."

Comments

Re:Possible maturity evident?

[DerekLyons]

I think that this might be a sign of increasing maturity in the process for making decisions about the space program. It seems, at least a little, a bit more reasonable to prepare a rescue option for missions like this rather than simply strapping on the cowboy boots and riding some crazy contraption out of the atmosphere with no viable hope of coming back, should something go wrong.

More accurately, it's a sign of the hype and hysteria surround space flight and astronauts that such expensive precautions must be taken - when there are thousands of USN submariners at sea right now with no viable hope should something go seriously wrong. Not to mention the hundreds of people who winter over in Antarctica each year. Not to mention the hundred of scientists and crew at sea on USNS research vessels. (A friend of mine is in the middle of the Pacific right now - hundreds of miles from land and well off the shipping lanes. It would take over a day for a search aircraft to reach them - and most of a week for a rescue ship to do so.)
 
The submariners have rescue vessels standing by, sorta - we were told to expect to wait a week or more back in the 1980's, and our capabilities have declined sharply since then. None of the others have dedicated rescue capability standing by.
 
And that's just the government jobs...