Posted on 06/27/2010 3:53:29 AM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
The two final US space shuttle missions before the shuttle program is phased out will likely be postponed, a NASA spokesperson told AFP on Friday. "It's not official yet but it's very likely," said Allard Beutel, media services chief at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
"The decision will be officially announced July 1st," he said.
The US space shuttles are being retired after President Barack Obama opted not to fund a successor program, deciding instead to encourage private spacecraft development.
The final two shuttle missions are both to the orbiting International Space Station (ISS).
The shuttle Discovery's flight to the ISS, scheduled for September 16, will likely be moved to October 29 at 2144 GMT, while the final flight of the shuttle Endeavour, currently scheduled for late November, will likely be postponed to February 28, 2011, Beutel said.
The French Higher Education Minister Valerie Pecresse, who met NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on a visit to the United States this week, told AFP that she has been invited to the next shuttle launch on October 29.
The Endeavour's mission was already postponed from its original July 29 launch date to replace a part on the 1.5-billion-dollar Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer due for ISS delivery -- the device will delve into the mysterious dark matter thought to permeate the universe.
The Discovery mission will deliver replacement parts for the Italian-made Pressurized Multipurpose Module (PMM) Leonardo, which will be permanently attached to the ISS.
(Excerpt) Read more at space-travel.com ...
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I agree
I’ve always questioned the benefits of the space station anyway. After all of these years it seemed like nothing but make work to keep the space agency jobs going.
I agree.I used to think that it was a benefit but now I think its a gigantic waste of money. We should be aiming for the Moon and Mars.
The space station is the monstrous fruit of international bureaucracy and design by committee. Whatever initial thoughtful purpose for the ISS has long since been lost and now it exists for the sake of it’s own existence.
Robotics have progressed so much ... who needs mannned presence anymore? I can’t justify it on the basis of adventure. I always thought that there was too much fantacist dreaming behind that waste of money.
First thing I want to say is that I am very much in favor of “private Space flight” BUT given this current administration’s demonstrated bias against all forms of business (except Golf, “Date Night” and vacation), I cannot imagine a worse time for this cut-off. Obama completely exemplifies the record that he had before election as a left-wing loon who could sit in a church for 20 years and never hear it’s pastor’s hate-America sermons! I would not be surprised to hear him apologize to the environmentalist lobby for polluting the Moon with our Apollo Program!
It’s becoming harder to ethically and fiscally justify sending people into space when robots can do the job of scientific exploration much cheaper. Maybe at some point in the future when most of the bugs are ironed out people can go back into space for essentially tourism.
I also thought the space station was going to be abandoned in the next few years. Why are they still adding on to this thing?
Yes, but unfortunately, this regime is more interested in aiming at Uranus.
I think it’s just supplies, repairs and crew replacement from here on out. I could be wrong but I think all the big parts are already in place. There has been talk of extending the life of the ISS, I guess just so they won’t have to deorbit the thing or abandon it so close to it’s final completion date. It would be embarrassing for the govt to admit it was all about politics and no actual science ever got accomplished there. In any case, it is obsolete as there are already better and cheaper station modules developed and ready to go and they are being offered by a private company.
Many current freepers seem to side with Obama on this. Thats disappointing.
No argument there, but we’ve been going in the wrong direction since the ‘70s. We can thank short-sighted idiots like the late Sen. William Proxmire for that.
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