Space Shuttle Launch Delayed Until July

DarkNemesis618 writes "NASA decided on Tuesday to delay the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery until July, squashing all hopes that it would launch in May. The external fuel tank is again the culprit, but this time it's not the foam. One of the four fuel sensors in the fuel tank that control when the space shuttle's main engines cut off was discovered to be faulty. This delay does however, give NASA the time it needs to decide what to do about the small crack found on the robotic arm. Over a week ago, a worker bumped the arm leaving a small crack in it. The arm is key to this next mission as the cameras and lasers used to inspect the shuttle for damage are mounted on the robotic arm. All things aside, NASA engineers are saying that the next possible launch date will be July 1st."

Re:This is news?

[__aaclcg7560]

A Fourth of July launch with George Bush and American flags all over the last place? No problem. Unless the shuttle goes boom in a real bad way. That might put an end to the manned space program and going back to Moon and Mars. Don't want a repeat of the Challenger disaster, where that shuttle launch was supposed coincide with President Reagan's State of The Union address and a phone call to the first teacher in space. NASA would be launching space probes if that was to happen again.

Justifying thier existance

[NETHED]

Is the shuttle program just forgotten about (due to war, bird flu, etc) and the workers just making work to look busy? We ALL know that the shuttle program is going to be scrapped; the Soyuz capsules were purchased because of it! Literally BILLIONS of dollars are being poured down the drain (no, fixing an old shuttle is not new science). The only thing I can see this being used for is to train new scientists.

Re:This is news?

[kimvette]

By that logic, why did you ever leave Mommy and Daddy to go out on your own (or have you yet)? This is intended to be funny and drive across the point, BTW, and not an attack.

Why go to a bar, or to a movie? It's not even remotely useful to do either since they do not provide a living.

Ever go skiing? Why go up a mountain just to take a huge risk balancing on narrow pieces of fibreglass while sliding down the side of a mountain at 60-90mph, when at any moment you might just fall and end up crashing into a tree and dying?

Why bother doing ANYTHING?

It's human nature. Why not explore? I would LOVE to see the gas giants up close - especially Jupiter and Saturn. I would love visit the Horsehead nebulae up close. I would love to visit the vicinity of a black hole just to find out whether it is actually visible or not. I would love to visit a brown dwarf to see just what happens while a star "dies."

Wouldn't it be fascinating? For no other reason than to SEE it. In person. Wonder in amazment at the universe.

We're human. We explore. We have curiousity. Of COURSE we want to get off this "rock" - does there have to be any reason other than "it's out there, and I have never been there." - to paraphrase from The Truman Show - "Because I never have! That's why people go places, isn't it?"

Does there HAVE to be a tangible result?

of course, I'd love to see an end to political strife, starvation, etc. first before spending money on space exploration, but again, it's all human nature and it's human nature to bicker and those issues will never be solved, so why not spend money on exploration?

Re:the point?

[FleaPlus]

there was a lot of stuff that went up in the cargo bay and came back in the cargo bay that would have had a really tough time on a parachute landing.

Do you have examples? I'm under the impression that the cargo retrieval capability was only used once or twice in the Space Shuttle's history, although the Air Force fantasized that they would use it to do things like snatch Soviet satellites out of the sky.

Re:the point?

[everphilski]

I mean, why is it so important to land like an airplane

To retrieve Soviet satellites... among other things. So you are right. Prettymuch pointless now. Which is why the CEV removes this requirement.

Re:This is news?

[techno-vampire]

mean, star trek is cool and everything, but until we're close to being able to teraform other planets, it's not going to be terribly useful to send people to live in space.

And how do you expect us to learn how to terraform other planets without going out there? For that matter, why do you think we need to terraform them? Space is full of resources just waiting to be exploited, but to do that, we're going to have to get out there because there's just so much you can do with robots and probes and it's just not enough. Right now, we're on the edge of having a long-term, sustainable presence in Earth orbit, and that puts us half-way to wherever else we want or need to go.