Space Shuttle to fly again tomorrow

[Patroklos]

I am on 12 hour standby to go pick up the pieces if need be.

Such optimism from the US government....

[Gatekeeper]

The shuttle ain't flying today ... faulty fuel sensor in the external fuel tank (the big orange thing).

God, they really need to get rid of that antiquated 1970s-era technology and get with the 21st century. 2010 can't come soon enough.

Gatekeeper

[Solver]

Damn the flight cancellation .

[Verto]

jesus christ, this is embarassing.

[DanS]

Why is it embarassing?

[Verto]

After a 2 year shutdown of our space program, America's attempt to return to space can't even get off the ground.

The shuttle is ridiculous, a horrible display of waste. Where are it's benefits? It costs 500 million per launch, instead of the 5 million that it's proponents originally stated, and it was until recently using chips from the 1980s in its flight comp - and for what? It's only purpose is to go to the ISS.

Shut down the space shuttle program, kill the ISS which is already 21 billion dollars over budget (not counting the cost of launching those abominable shuttles into space) and force NASA to evolve.

[Spiffor]

The shuttle will soon be killed, as cargo will be shipped by new modules (US made). As for manned travel to the ISS, it will use solely the Russian launchers.

This horrible shuttle will soon be dead indeed

As for NASA evolving, it does. There is almost nothing about manned spaceflight (except to the ISS) for the coming 20 years at least. Instead of investing in white elephants, NASA now plans to invest in specialized tools for furthering Space Science. Deep Impact was one of such tools. The scrapping of Hubble, in order to be replaced by several specialised observatory satellites is another.

[DanS]

The shuttle is embarassing in itself, but the fact that we can't get it off the ground today is nothing to be ashamed about.

[Dis]

next Tuesday is now what I hear for a launch date

[Winston]

Yes, next Tuesday, but they still haven't fully remedied the sensor problem which caused the delay. They're moving to a countdown, hoping the check procedure won't set off the same alarm as last time.

I personally give this new launch attempt very little chance of success. Tuesday is 26 July, and if they postpone again (highly probable), they'll only have 4-5 more days before being forced to put it off till September.

[reds4ever]

Unmanned probes

If they can finance the shuttle by charging to put payloads into space then fine, otherwise.

[Odin]

NASA needs to concentrate on getting us to Mars Why are we stuck in Earth orbit? the manned space program should concentrate on trail-blazing, not being a ferry service for private sattelites

[Dis]

mars isn't realistic. I'm against any manned missions to mars.

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by Odin
NASA needs to concentrate on getting us to Mars Why are we stuck in Earth orbit? the manned space program should concentrate on trail-blazing, not being a ferry service for private sattelites

Sod putting a man on Mars, theres no immediate need(the cold war has ended, the US isn't in a d1ck measuring competition with the USSR anymore).

The best bang for your buck (by far) is in umanned probes.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by reds4ever
Sod putting a man on Mars, theres no immediate need(the cold war has ended, the US isn't in a d1ck measuring competition with the USSR anymore).

Actually, the prospect of putting a man on Mars would be an extremely interesting scientific challenge, which could have significant repercutions on our ability to create living conditions in extremely hostile environments:

Unlike a mission to the ISS or to the Moon, a mission to Mars would be very long (2 to 3 years minimum), and it would require the mission to become largely self-sufficient: the life support would require an artificial ecosystem that could recycle most of the essential ingredients of life (water, air, about half of the food).
Not only do they need a good recycling scheme, they'd also need a good extraction scheme. Unless the payload becomes extremely heavy, a manned mission to Mars will have to create its own fuel from Mars' resources in order to go back to earth (something nobody would bother developing if we only send unmanned probes).

The ability to live without a constant supply from earth, and the ability to extract fuel from another planet would pave the way to actual space exploitation, and could even lead to space colonization. If we don't go this route, we'd continue to explore space and to increase our knowledge about it, but with little prospect for economic returns.