Posted on 05/09/2009 6:09:22 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – After months of delay, NASA cleared space shuttle Atlantis for a Monday launch to the Hubble Space Telescope.
Mission managers concluded Saturday that Atlantis is ready to take off on the long-awaited Hubble repair mission, the fifth and final one. Shuttle Endeavour is also in good shape at the other launch pad; it's on standby in case Atlantis is damaged during the flight and its seven astronauts need to be rescued.
Weather forecasters gave good odds for launching Atlantis: 80 percent. What's more, things were looking more encouraging at the emergency landing site in Spain, where only a slight chance of rain is expected Monday. Liftoff time is just after 2 p.m.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
The crew of the space shuttle Atlantis STS-125 (L to R) mission specialist's Megan McArthur, Michael Good, pilot Gregory Johnson, commander Scott Altman, mission specialist's John Grunsfeld, Michael Massimino and Andrew Feustel stand for a group photo after arriving at the shuttle landing facility at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, May 8, 2009. REUTERS/Scott Audette
Wouldn’t be surprised if the Idiot in Chief cancelled NASA manned missions in the near future. Gotta find a way to pay off the rest of his voters and all that NASA money would buy a lot of votes
The Discovery Channel will be doing ‘live’ programming of this mission in HD. I am looking forward to the shows.
Sweet. This is exactly what Discovery HD is made for.
The NASA budget is a pittance compared to what he is spending. But he will most likely try to sell National Pride off for a few votes.
After all the Iranians have a pretty good rocket program.
As great as watching a launch on HD is it still doesn’t come close to seeing one in person. It’s unbelievable.
Isn’t the wide screen (16x9) actually worse to see a launch? Worse than the old 4x3.
There needs to be a way to upright the wide dimension, just for launches!
Speaking from experience?
God speed and good luck, Atlantis. You have a hand full!
You can say that again. I watched the Challenger blow up at the Indian River.
Captain Hussein is seriously considering cancelling Airies, the next version of the shuttle. If it isn’t a “green” thing, or a payoff to a constituency, he’s not interested. He’s an uncommonly unserious man, IMO.
just my opinion, but,
taking care of the Hubble is the only useful thing
the shuttle program does.
nice, that they apparently have found astronauts
that are brave enough to fly into space.
not all that long ago, NASA thought that flying into
space was unsafe.
Last I heard the Science Channel show starts at 1:30, and will probably give some updates as well as explain the mission further.
Question, does anyone know if another Deep Space Field is planned? The last one was in 2003-004, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (a great photo of it on wikipedia, just click on the photo and it enlarges to “full size” if done right)
Factfile on the Hubble telescope and NASA's latest servicing mission.US astronauts have boarded the space shuttle Atlantis for Monday's launch of a high-risk mission to service for the last time the Hubble telescope, which has revolutionized humankind's understanding of the universe. (AFP Graphic)
My Grandma was watching the Challenger launch from her home in Merritt Island when it exploded.
She lived there for so long she just said “Well, they blew it again.”
She felt horrible when the neighbors told her it was a manned flight, she didn’t know it was the shuttle.
In “true” HD, as the launches have been on HDNet for some time, they look great. The distortion you describe doesn’t happen with true HD.
I should say true HD on a properly tuned and set monitor.
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