Posted on 10/22/2007 5:42:08 PM PDT by KevinDavis
This is going to the be the live thread for the Space Shuttle Discovery. The reason why I'm posting this now it is because I have to work tomorrow...
How do you know that?
The US space shuttle Discovery’s planned launch on Tuesday could be delayed due to rain and cloudy conditions, NASA said on Monday.
A 60 percent chance of clouds and rain showers could interfere with the shuttle’s planned 11:38 am (1538 GMT) launch time, shuttle weather officer Kathy Winters said.
Weather forecasts for Wednesday and Thursday were slightly improved, with a “40 percent probability of weather prohibiting liftoff,” she said.
However, the weather in Florida can change rapidly and NASA said it had gone ahead with prior launches under less favorable conditions.
But NASA said aside from weather concerns, there were no technical problems and the countdown was proceeding normally on Monday afternoon.
“At this point in the count, we’re on schedule, our systems are all good and we’re in great shape,” said NASA test director Steve Payne.
The mission main job is to ferry in the Harmony module which is key to installing the European lab Columbus and Japan’s Kibo lab on the International Space Station.
NASA officials decided to attempt the Tuesday launch despite recommendations of an engineers committee calling first for the replacement of three of 44 thermal protection shields on the orbiter’s wings.
NASA has closely watched the shuttles’ thermal tiles since the 2003 Columbia catastrophe when a tile broke off the shuttle as it took off and hit its wing. The damage caused the shuttle to break up on re-entry, killing all seven crew members.
Replacing the tiles would have taken two months, officials said, a timeframe that would have affected coming launches.
any word on weather?
never mind
But a destroyed shuttle will not affect the timeframe?
Thanks for the ping, Kevin!
They decided it was an acceptable risk. They know what they are doing better than I so I won’t question. I will drive over and hopefully see the launch tho.
But the Shuttle wasn't intended to fly this many years; I saw many illustrations of the craft to follow. All stillborn.
Schuttle Pilot George Zamka is a relative of mine. May God protect and guide you George and the rest of the crew.
To be honest the folks at NASA knows more about Rocket Science than I do so I trust them also... Plus I never did sleep at a Holiday Inn Express...
People tend to take the space shuttle for granted. For all its problems the shuttle is a fantastic piece of engineering. Getting those millions of parts built by the lowest bidder to all work properly and on schedule is amazing.
God Bless em, they are a national treasure.
Best of luck to your relative and I’m sure that he is saying the Sheppard’s player...
Yes they are...
This is the shuttle that is supposed to bring Harmony to the International Space Station (the ESA Harmony thing—a concrete noun, to clear things up).
Rotflma twice
(photo I took some years back on a tour my son gave me - he's been a the base 20 years
I was down there in August and watched the Endeavour launch from the driveway - Let me rephrase, we were in the driveway watching the launch -
Wait a minute... if you’re working in the morning, who’s gonna do the live coverage?
bump
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