[Swordmaker]

Getting you further on the record... are you saying ISS could not have dropped their orbit enough to rendezvous with a Columbia that had not wasted their rocket fuel on de-orbit burn?

This is getting ridiculous. Are you totally illiterate?

Both John and I have told you SEVERAL TIMES that ISS does NOT HAVE THE CAPABILITY TO CHANGE ITS ORBIT! It has no engines. It has small attitude adjusting rockets to maintain proper angle for the solar panels... that is all. It has NO FUEL beyond a small amount of reaction mass for those itty bitty rockets. THE ISS is not designed to take any thrust at all... there are no structural members strong enough to take any kind of centralized force to change its orbit. Next, the Shuttle is not designed to refuel in orbit. It was NOT LAUNCHED with a trajectory that would enable it to reach or match velocities with the ISS. Not only is ISS 115-130 miles higher than the shuttle, it is literally ON A DIFFERENT ROAD!

SHEESH!

This is NOT Star Trek.

[OReilly]

...and that's exactly what the engineers said when they first looked at the Apollo 13 problem.