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Senator: NASA May Have To Consider Having Only 2 Launches
Topic Started: Jan 10 2011, 02:56 PM (162 Views)
Copper
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Shortstop

I hope Mark Kelly doesn't have to step down, there is already speculation about it.

http://www.wftv.com/news/26434686/detail.html

Quote:
 

Senator: NASA May Have To Consider Having Only 2 Launches

Posted: 4:20 pm EST January 10, 2011
Updated: 4:29 pm EST January 10, 2011

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA is getting a stern reality check from one of its biggest supporters. Senator Bill Nelson admitted Monday there may only be two more shuttle missions instead of three.

WFTV learned NASA will announce another delay for Discovery on Tuesday and, Nelson says, if engineers can't fix Discovery's external tank they must cancel the Atlantis mission and use that tank, because they aren't making tanks anymore.

The plant that makes the tanks in Louisiana has already been shut down, so NASA is really faced with two options: fly with a tank that has had more repair work done than any other tank or scrap an entire shuttle mission.

For nearly two months, workers have been making repairs to a tank NASA seems determined to fly even after eight cracks were found in five support beams. The cracked segments have been removed and replaced, and metal reinforcements have been added.

WFTV asked Senator Nelson if the sheer number of repairs should raise a red flag.

"If the NASA managers say that they are ready to launch, that's good enough for me. Clearly, they are not going to take any risk," he said.

Nelson said NASA shouldn't feel any pressure to launch the repaired tank just because there are no spares. He suggested NASA instead could cancel the final flight and use that tank.

"If worst came to worse and they felt like this tank was not safe, they would stand down and at that point would only fly two more shuttle flights instead of the three that are authorized," Nelson said.

Local leaders have been lobbying for that third and final mission for more than a year to stretch out shuttle layoffs.

Workers have scanned the tanks for the Atlantis and Endeavour missions and found no evidence of cracks or metal fatigue. Those two tanks, though, have not been loaded with fuel and subjected to the extreme weight and cold that comes with it and, since NASA doesn't know what is causing the cracks in the first place, engineers don't know if new ones will emerge.

Shuttle managers are planning an update on their progress and the remaining shuttle schedule Tuesday.

Discovery's delays do make things a little easier for a shuttle commander struck by tragedy. Commander Mark Kelly will now have more time to care for his wife, Congresswoman Gabbie Giffords, who was shot during the massacre in Arizona this weekend.

Kelly was supposed to fly Endeavour's final mission in April, but Discovery's delays will likely push that mission back now, too.


The Confederate soldier was peculiar in that he was ever ready to fight, but never ready to submit to the routine duty and discipline of the camp or the march. The soldiers were determined to be soldiers after their own notions, and do their duty, for the love of it, as they thought best. Carlton McCarthy
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Mark
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HOLY CARP!!!
boy, this is getting a lot of use today! :lol:

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
I kinda of doubt that Cmdr Kelly will be flying again, unfortunately.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Steve Miller
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Bull-Carp
I'm old enough to remember the first moon walk. Americans walked on the moon! We can do anything! Next stop Mars and beyond!

Now its all whining about taxes and deficits. No money for anything any more.

Sad, really.

Wag more
Bark less
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Copper
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Steve Miller
Jan 10 2011, 07:22 PM
Now its all whining about taxes and deficits. No money for anything any more.




Well there is some money for NASA for three things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zin9RkGsXrY



[edit] What a great comment after the video

Quote:
 
Obama forgot to make complimenting China for their invention of gunpowder the FBI's top initiative.

Edited by Copper, Jan 10 2011, 07:30 PM.
The Confederate soldier was peculiar in that he was ever ready to fight, but never ready to submit to the routine duty and discipline of the camp or the march. The soldiers were determined to be soldiers after their own notions, and do their duty, for the love of it, as they thought best. Carlton McCarthy
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