Shuttle Launch Postponed To July 4th 122
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."
Lets just hope (Score:4, Insightful)
there arn't any billion dollar firework displays
god speed
Re:Lets just hope (Score:3, Funny)
I saw the phrase "Windows of opportunity" and thought "Those poor astronauts are headed big blue screen up above."
Re:Lets just hope (Score:2)
Re:Lets just hope (Score:1)
Re:Lets just hope (Score:3, Informative)
Tempting Fate (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Tempting Fate (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Tempting Fate (Score:2)
Re:Tempting Fate (Score:2)
Re:Tempting Fate (Score:1)
"Now for your listening enjoyment, GOD OF EXPLOSIONS!!!!"
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Re:Tempting Fate (Score:1, Interesting)
Interesting? (Score:1)
Re:Tempting Fate (Score:3, Funny)
In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:5, Informative)
That, and... (Score:1)
We're KINDA keen on only killing Americans and associated foreigners we haven't invested millions in already.
Re:That, and... (Score:1)
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:5, Informative)
Fact: Both Americans and Soviets initially used pencils.
Fact: The Americans (and probably the Russians as well) realized that having all these little broken tips floating around in space probably wasn't a good idea.
Fact: Graphite can conduct electricity, so having the graphite dust floating around wasn't good either.
Fact: The wood and graphite would burn easily in a oxygen rich enviroment
Fact: Fisher Pens developed the space pen on their own using their own capital. Only after developed a working pen that resolved the above issues (as well as a few more) did they pass it on to NASA to evaluate.
Fact: Both NASA and the Russian space agency have used the space pen in flights since 1968.
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:3, Informative)
From the Pedro Duque's diary [esa.int]: "I am writing these notes in the Soyuz with a cheap ballpoint pen... Seeing my astonishment, he [my Soyuz instructor] told me the Russians have always used ballpoint pens in space."
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:2)
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:4, Interesting)
Instead, the balls were manufactured in East Germany (which was under communists not as long as Russia).
Even then, one sometimes had to file away a little metal at the end of the tube so it does not scratch paper when writing. This got resolved with time - either they fixed the process or (just as likely) switched to imports.
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure this has more than made up for their development costs.
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:2, Funny)
Learn English.
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:5, Informative)
US space program lost 14 people in missions, in two Shuttle accidents, one on launch and another on descent.
Both programs had various accidents on the ground, not in missions.
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:3, Informative)
And let us also remember the three lost in the Apollo 1 fire.
Here's a link to information at NASA:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:2)
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:2)
The part that assumes "on the ground" and "mission" are mutually exclusive. Apollo 1 is a mission.
From the NASA site:
The AS-204 mission was redesignated Apollo I in honor of the crew.
(http://history.nasa.gov/Apollo204/index.html [nasa.gov])
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:1)
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:2)
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:2)
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:2)
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:3, Informative)
I imagine the weather is a bit different... (Score:4, Interesting)
I imagine weather patterns in Florida are a lot more difficult to predict than they are at Russian launch sites.
Re:I imagine the weather is a bit different... (Score:2)
I lived in Florida for years. Some of those storms are awesome. Blinding rain, several lightning strikes per minute, heavy winds.
The house I grew up in was hit by lightning more times than I can remember. I remember sometimes (at least a few times a summer) lightning would strike the house, and then arc inside the house from the stove to the kitchen sink.
Once, in one of the freak storms you're describing, I was driving up US Hwy 1
Re:I imagine the weather is a bit different... (Score:1)
All those jokes about people buying Florida swampland are true. Only now those people have built houses on that swampland and are making millions.
Re:I imagine the weather is a bit different... (Score:2)
It's really sad. One beautiful place I found for only $400,000 was built in what is obviously wetlands. Well, obvious if you look at the satellite photo. Maybe it's not obvious if you drove up, but you'd have to be an idiot.
It's really sad that I'll have to specify "I want a house that won't be flooded when it rains." I expect I'll have to spell it out.
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:4, Informative)
The larger tank used to be painted white, until they thought about how heavy that extra coat of paint was, and how the primer color could be used to help heat the main tank on the ground. Now, calculate how much weight 'a bit of rain' would add to an already dew moistened tank and how that would require an immediate recalibration of many main systems. On the surface, it does seem as if NASA overthinks something as simple as punching a hole in the clouds, but the very nature of this particular roman candle is such that there are a myriad of complex issues and sub-systems all demanding attention. Ignore one and what looked simple while at rest can quickly become an unharmonious rage by the ghost in the machine...
I think the only ones that have any idea the cost in lives paid at Balkinor are the families left without sons/brothers/fathers/husbands/uncles.
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:5, Informative)
lightning is the problem .. Re:In Soviet USA .. (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [wikipedia.org] 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.
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:1)
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:2)
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:1)
When the columbia broke up, I can't even describe to you the mood in the town. We were all shellshocked. The space industry employees seemed as if a member of their family had died. T
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:3, Interesting)
Or at least when they try to stop the countdown and management refuses to do so, they'll resign in protest [abcnews.com]...
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:2)
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:4, Interesting)
That's one thing that basing your launchers on ICBM technology gets you. After all, if it comes down to it, you can't hold up your ICBM launches for a little inclement weather.
Designing a vehicle with a safe abort mode in all phases of flight would help too (think "commercial aircraft") -- but vertical takeoff/horizontal landing just doesn't do it, and especially not when you've got SRBs that have to burn for two full minutes once lit -- and you can't separate them (or from them) while burning.
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:2)
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:1)
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:2)
If they are wet, the water dropplets could freeze in space and break them off.
Also bad things can happen with lightning hitting tons of jet fuel. Lightning has hit apollo 10 and 11 before however.
Russian technology is sturdy (Score:3, Informative)
Now try that with an M16.
Russian technology is often less sophisticated than US technology. But it can often take a lot more stress, and you can fix it fairly easily. You'd be amazed what junk you can find in some Ural trucks used in lieu of spare parts...
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:2)
You're all messed up, but since you're a communist/socialist european, that's not surprising. Russia killed over a hundred just in
Re:In Soviet USA, Shuttles launch you? (Score:1)
Not A Dupe! (Score:4, Funny)
Anyways, they should delay all that they need to and not take any undue risks. We need another shuttle tragedy like someone named GothChick1989 needs another piercing.
Re:Not A Dupe! (Score:1)
could we just have a post after it has been launched.
So (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, the shuttle can take a much, much larger payload than anything else currently available (I think).
Re:So (Score:2)
Yeah, my bad. I meant the shuttle program.
Re:So (Score:2)
Re:So (Score:5, Informative)
Energiya was a modular design, and could be configured to lift up to 400,000 lbs from the ground. It was flown twice in 160,000 lbs configuration (one of those flights launched Buran, which weighted about 80,000 lbs.) Given Energiya's thrust, Buran could lift up to 60,000 lbs in its payload bay, but that never happened because nobody was interested - we are not building starships yet.
Energiya as such is not manufactured now, but it's engines - RD-180 - are used on Atlas V. The "heavy" option can lift up to 50,000 lbs to the LEO, or 26,000 lbs to the geostationary orbit.
Re:So (Score:2)
Re:So (Score:1)
More importantly, the Shuttle can return payloads and experiments to the ground. The Soyuz module has very little space to return payloads. Progress is destroyed during re-entry, as ESA's ATV will be.
In addition the Shuttle connects to ISS using the US docking port allowing the of transfer large rack-sized payloads into ISS. For example this mission will deliver the MELFI rack payload to ISS (a fr
Be serious (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Be serious (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Be serious (Score:2)
And on that note:
Comedian: "Hey, did you hear the joke about Hao Wu who posted something called 'Be serious' on slashdot?"
Audience: "Uh, yeah... we just read it."
Comedian: "Oh, well in that case did you hear the one about his post being marked +5 Ins
Re:Be serious (Score:1)
Re:Be serious (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think anyone here is laughing and making fun of at the horrors of a potential disaster - that's not funny.
What is funny is the irony of the situation: On July the 4th, people all over the USA gather and celebrate while watching rockets explode in the sky - AND THEY CHOOSE JULY 4TH TO LAUNCH THE SHUTTLE??
Now that's Irony.
Re:Be serious (Score:1)
But there is some symbolism too. Not only will a successful launch put Americans back in space, but it will as well signify our freedom to recover from tragedies. I do not think the prior tragedies are really what has held us back from this launch so much as bureaucracy. Please remember:
Get the digi cam out space cadet. (Score:1)
If the lightning don't get ya.... (Score:5, Funny)
This just in.. Weather conditions are growing all over the world. Visual, and radar data combined with realtime satellite imagery have proven without a doubt that weather is growing! Scientists have so far been unable to explain why the weather is growing however recent CERN experiments have concluded that if left unchecked weather will soon sweep the entire planet@!
Save Yourselves!
Re:If the lightning don't get ya.... (Score:1)
Re:If the lightning don't get ya.... (Score:2)
Damn! (Score:1, Funny)
Morning vs afternoon (Score:1)
Maybe in Florida. Here in the Midwest we can get the flash-boom of T'storms any time of day or night. Nothing like being woken up at 5 am to a power outage.
Re:Morning vs afternoon (Score:1, Funny)
Huh? Do you have a diesel generator somehow attached to your local power grid so that it knows when the power goes out, starts itself up, then generates power for one of those tornado warning sirens (you know, just to keep the neighbors guessing) and fires up the 8,000,000 candle-power spotlight in strobe(!) mode aimed directly at your window? Or what's the deal?
Re:Morning vs afternoon (Score:1)
Re:Morning vs afternoon (Score:1)
With all the electricity requiring items around, power failures and power resumptions wake me.
Re:Morning vs afternoon (Score:2)
If there is another problem with that foam, and no camera data because of launching at night (or pre dawn), well thats going to be a major obstacle.
Its really, really important for the whole space station program that this launch happens, with
ID4 (Score:1)
Re:ID4 (Score:1)
MUST-GO-FASTER!
Amazing (Score:1)
AIM-FIRE! (Score:2)
Who launches from Florida in the summer? (Score:2)
Re:Who launches from Florida in the summer? (Score:2)
Because, in the event of an accident they don't want 1,018,181.8 gallons of liquid oxygen and kerosene crashing into some highly populated city instead of the Atlantic.
Re:Who launches from Florida in the summer? (Score:2)
2. There is an enormous benefit to most missions for launching as close to the Equator as you can, so that the missions can take advantage of the extra velocity boost from Eart
Drudge Says (Score:2)
As of Monday AM. NPR says it's a 5 inch crack. I'm not sure if this is a big issue or grandstanding, but it could scrap this launch. Thermal cycling of the tank causes the cracks, they've tanked Discovery twice so this is to be expected. It definitely poses an added element of risk. If they are going to fly, they need to light that candle. Otherwise, stop the song-and-dance routine.
I want to see them succeed, finish the ISS and ret
Re:dupe (Score:2)
Re:dupe (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Fireworks (Score:1)
Re:Conspiracy? (Score:2)
He wasn't my friend. It was a public announcement carried by all the major media just over a month ago.