CNN/Reuters: NASA hopes foam fixes solve problem (shuttle launch, 7/1)

NASA hopes foam fixes solve problem
Wednesday, June 28, 2006

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) -- It's been three and half years and hundreds of millions of dollars since the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated. Yet NASA faces the same vexing problem that doomed the orbiter when it tries to launch shuttle Discovery on Saturday.

Insulation foam -- it seems a trivial part of launching a complex spacecraft. But the problem of falling foam has perplexed the U.S. space agency capable of doing what no other country does, landing a space freighter like an aircraft.

Outfitted with a second round of upgrades to its fuel tank following the 2003 Columbia disaster, Discovery is on the launch pad and scheduled to fly at 3:49 p.m. EDT on July 1.

If successful, NASA plans up to 17 more shuttle missions, including a possible servicing call to the Hubble Space Telescope, before the shuttle fleet is retired in 2010.

If not, and if the U.S. space agency were to lose a third shuttle to disaster, NASA administrator Michael Griffin has said he would likely pull the plug on all future missions....NASA's top safety official, along with its chief engineer, both recently voted against clearing Discovery for its July 1 launch. They were overruled by NASA administrator Michael Griffin and other top managers....

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/06/28/shuttle.foam.reut/index.html

from Paynes Prairie. I'll have to go down to watch and pray for the best.

of Iraq & bushco in general, that they are more than willing to "chance it" with this thing.

:eyes:

This scenario looks depressingly familiar.

I think they WANT this to blow up or fail... ground the shuttle fleet, give the space station to the Russians or the Japanese or europeans, and slash NASA's budget to nothing... except for the new manned military missions to the moon and Mars, with most of that money going to their favorite defense contractors.

No unmanned rover missions, no planetary probes, no more Earth observation (MTPE) satellites, no more basic science or environmental science.

that it is successful and they can claim a victory.....

Astronauts know the risk. They want to go up anyway.

Space Travel = Scientific Advances. We are Way behind where we should be.

Launch!

Two words that should NEVER be used together :scared:

It;s very sad to see our once-great scientific organizations, reduced to hope & prayer, instead of certainty and determination

But, I'm not getting my hopes up for it.