Space Shuttle Landing Live Thread(Update: 2d Pass on landing. Weather unstable. 24 Hour extension)

08/07/05 | Kevin Davis

[KevinDavis]

Well since the Space Shuttle is landing at 4:45 am, I figure I start a live thread now (I won't be awake)...

[CindyDawg]

Can't stay (up). What happened?

[Michael Goldsberry]

Unfavorable weather conditions caused a delay.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

"Fox and Friends reported that the Florida weather forecast for tomorrow looks worse than today's for the landing area.

[DefiantZERO]

There must be other suitable landing locations than KSC or Edwards. Wouldn't they be able to commandeer a landing strip at almost any major airport?

[Michael Goldsberry]

I don't think so, due to craft weight and required runway length.

[don-o]

Strange - the word last night was that Edwards was not prepared because they were confident of good weather at the Cape.

[alancarp]

Right - they don't really like to use the brakes that much - the KSC landing strip is about 15,000 feet (3 miles) IIRC. Seems that many commcercial airports are about half that. Orlando, for example, is two miles since B-52's used to fly in there (McCoy Air Force base; hence the MCO moniker for that airport).

[Graymatter]

NO Go...

I've never liked August. Hard on the nerves. :(

[hoosiermama]

When cloud cover still threatened after the second of two landing opportunities, NASA officials rescheduled the landing for Tuesday. For the next attempt, they will consider alternate landing sites at Edwards Air Force Base in California and at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, in addition to Florida's Kennedy Space Center.


"There's no agony," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said from the landing strip. He noted that the decision to put off Discovery's return until Tuesday came from chief astronaut Kent Rominger, who was flying the shuttle training aircraft through the cloudy sky over Kennedy.

Griffin said that on Tuesday, "We're going to land one way or another, one place or another, and all we're talking about is where."

[FReepaholic]

...Wouldn't they be able to commandeer a landing strip at almost any major airport?...

They need special Ground Equipment to service the orbiter after landing.

[BohDaThone]

Why Canaveral?? The closer to the equator, the greater the assist from the earth's rotation. (One thing that is good about the Ariane launch site in French Guiana). You want to launch east, to get that help (especially when you are just on the margin of being able to do the deed, as in the early 60s). Water recovery (or booster disposal) is better than the mountains you encounter if you go east from west coast.

Note that Jules Verne, in the 1880s or so, put his launch site in "From the Earth to the Moon" almost exactly at the canaveral site!

[KevinDavis]

That us why we don't see ships launch from say like New York, Virginia, or Georgia.. Cape is close to the equator..

[blam]

There's a very long landing strip here in Mobile that is designated as a shuttle emergency landing site. I don't think we're to an emergency yet though.

[blam]

"The closer to the equator, the greater the assist from the earth's rotation. (One thing that is good about the Ariane launch site in French Guiana). You want to launch east, to get that help (especially when you are just on the margin of being able to do the deed, as in the early 60s)."

This is a pretty amazing private group here at last count, they had 18 launches under their belt:

Sea Launch

"The Sea Launch project is the world's first purely commercial international venture to develop and operate a sea-based space launch system. The main objective of this project is to provide commercial services for launching spacecraft (SC) from a mobile sea-based launch platform. The project assumes that most of the SC will be launched into the geostationary orbit from an equatorial launch site located in the Pacific Ocean near Christmas Island."

[RayChuang88]

Given the bad weather at the Cape Canaveral area over the next week or so, I wouldn't be surprised that Edwards AFB will end up being the landing site, probably landing just after dawn PDT. Besides, Edwards has extensive Space Shuttle service facilities on its own so examination of the thermal protection system can be done at Edwards before they fly Discovery on top of a 747 back to to Cape Canaveral.

[jaydubya2]

I heard it cost over $1 million to ferry the shuttle from Edwards to the Cape on that 747.

[markman46]

yes it cost over a $1 mil, plus they have to have good weather to fly the shuttle back to the Cape, because of the tiles

[jaydubya2]

Funny you posted that cause I was thinking the same thing when I wrote it! Great minds, huh?