[RightWhale]

This is probably an improper thread, but the Space Shuttle launch schedule appears to be in severe trouble, and the Hubble servicing mission especially.

[NormsRevenge]

do I read this right that the environmental concerns raised years ago have finally bit the program bigtime.. damn!

a nation that chases its tail because of an ecowacko agenda is really asking for it, we see that all around us as is at the pump..

[Nonstatist]

Its an open secret that the Hubble launch has been moved to October. Just as well, some of the subsystems arent ready and meeting the August deadline would be problematic.

[onedoug]

Hubble would be a great loss. It has aided some of the best recent research pointing to the recently discovered acceleration of the universe.

Pictured: Crab Nebula remnant supernova which was seem by Chinese and Japanese observers in 1054ad.

[onedoug]

Iain Nicolson, Dark Side of the Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy and The Fate of The Cosmos

[patton]

My prediction - the shuttle will never fly again, except missions to the ISS.

Of course, I am often wrong.

[Political Junkie Too]

NASA Administrator Mike Griffin early on approved plans to have a second shuttle, Endeavour, ready for launch on a rescue mission just in case.

So, if this were ever to happen, what would it be like? A second shuttle would fly to the first shuttle to offload the crew? What would they do with the first shuttle after that?

Would they jettison the shuttle to burn up in the atmosphere? Would they attempt to put it in a stationary orbit until a future flight could repair it and land it? Would they try to move it to a new orbit that a future flight could then reach and still reach the ISS?

-PJ

[dragnet2]

Too bad, Hubble is probably the best thing to happen to NASA and the science community in the past decade or so. Of course they are building some earth based scopes, and have some on-line currently with many times the resolution of Hubble.