Slashdot Mirror
NASA Delays Discovery's Final Launch To February
Velcroman1 writes "NASA has postponed the launch of space shuttle Discovery's final mission to no earlier than early February — the latest in a long string of delays that have kept the spacecraft grounded for more than a month. Discovery is now slated to launch no earlier than Feb. 3, with the delay allowing NASA engineers more time to analyze why small cracks developed in the shuttle's huge external fuel tank. The cracks have since been repaired, but NASA wants to make sure similar issues don't pose a future concern."
If it's fixed, launch it. Why worry about future concerns? There won't be anymore Space Shuttle.
I hope their final voyage is a safe one, and one day we will have a manned mission back to the Moon and maybe to Mars.
Here is a cool infographic I found on the Space Shuttle
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
You can't end the shuttle era if you keep delaying the last shuttle mission.
For the 2010 fiscal year, the president's base budget of the Department of Defense rose to $533.8 billion. Adding spending on "overseas contingency operations" brings the sum to $663.8 billion
I daresay that if NASA could have a budget like that, we'd have a Moon base, a Mars base, and manned operations in deep space, all in short order. But it's not going to happen
Meanwhile, various other launch systems, that aren't pork-bloated, politically-designed flying bricks, just keep chugging along with their launches and schedules successfully. I suppose this is what happens when politicians and business majors decide they can be engineers. Go figure
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
(Disclaimer: While I was in school I broke 100k on my parents' '96 Corolla, and then moved onto an '86 Volvo with close to 200k on it. Then I got a job and bought a new Corolla.)
Actually, there were multiple levels to my car analogy--one being that it's a Pinto so it might burst into flames at any moment (yes, stereotype, but true of the shuttle), another being that after 32 years it's not even up to 300,000, and the third being that the new safer car is already paid for. But I should have picked something other than a BMW, maybe a Honda, to emphasize that the new one isn't expensive, and should have included that you were doing thousands of dollars of work on the Pinto.
THEREFORE, I will include my revised car analogy below.
It's like rebuilding the engine on your '78 Pinto--for the third time--so you can make one last cross-country trip, while your wife takes the new 2010 Accord out for errands.
In this fine-tuned analogy, I make the point that the old experienced vehicle is not reliable or safe yet expected to perform on a grueling journey, while the new safer vehicle is being tested in baby steps.
I heard the real reason was that the crew refused to let the TSA agents do the new pat down procedure.
I don't know who or why they would push the launch to Dec 17. First of all, the Shuttle is not tested across a year boundary, and the last flight is not the time to be testing to see if this works. (Dates are complex enough, and handling all possible date transitions is even harder. Thus it's easier to not fly the Shuttle across a New Year transition rather than have to test everything to ensure it can handle it).
I believe it was supposed to be a 10 day mission, so if it launches Dec 17, it means it returns Dec 27. Which gives you 4 days before you're in test-pilot mode (the missions may get extended unexpectedly due to launch delays or weather on return). While I doubt the shuttle would just explode when the clock ticks over, 4 days doesn't seem like a lot of leeway.
All they had to do was push it another couple of weeks and they'd have a whole year to schedule and launch. At least it seems saner heads have prevailed.
No, the correct methodology is to make the contractor pay for the inspections and any repairs, plus a fee for any delays to launches.