More Bad Weather Threatens Space Shuttle Endeavor’s Launch at Pat Dollard

More Bad Weather Threatens Space Shuttle Endeavor’s Launch

July 13th, 2009 (7) Posted By Erik Wong.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA faced the prospect of more stormy weather Monday as it tried for the fifth time to launch shuttle Endeavour to the international space station.

NASA finished loading more than 500,000 gallons of fuel into Endeavour’s huge external tank in early afternoon, under an increasingly overcast sky.

“While we all hope that today’s the day, we have a saying that you never know for sure until the solid rockets light off,” commander Mark Polansky said from crew quarters in a Twitter update.

Thunderstorms prevented Endeavour and seven astronauts from blasting off Sunday evening. Forecasters said there was a 60 percent chance the weather would force yet another delay Monday evening for the space station construction mission.

NASA has until Tuesday, possibly Wednesday, to launch Endeavour with the final piece of Japan’s space station lab. Otherwise, it must wait until the end of July because of a Russian supply ship that’s awaiting liftoff.

Sunday’s countdown made it all the way to the nine-minute mark before the liftoff was scrubbed.

Saturday’s launch attempt was foiled several hours in advance by a series of lightning strikes around the pad that required extra checks of the many critical shuttle systems. Back in June, hydrogen gas leaks held everything up. Repairs to a misaligned plate on the fuel tank took care of the leaks.

The only technical concern Monday was a loose cover on a shuttle thruster. Rain at the pad almost certainly would force a launch delay; any water that gets into the thruster would freeze in space, and the thruster would become inoperable.

Endeavour holds the third and final segment of Japan’s enormous $1 billion space station lab, named Kibo, or Hope. It’s a porch for experiments that need to be exposed to the vacuum of space. The shuttle also is loaded with large spare parts for the space station and hundreds of pounds of food for the six station residents.

When the shuttle astronauts arrive at the space station, they will make up the biggest crowd ever in a single place in orbit: 13 people.

Endeavour will spend nearly two weeks at the space station. In all, the flight will last 16 days. Five spacewalks are planned to hook up the Japanese lab’s new porch, replace space station batteries and perform other maintenance.

(AP)

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Scoot

Why the hell are we launching this thing every other week? This shit costs a bundle of cash to launch, etc., and no one is complaining about how much money is being spent on this instead of more important issues.

Plus, they already launched a better telescope than Hubble, but the spend, spend, spend to update this outdated telescope.

Is there something more going on up in space that we don’t know about, say, new weaponry?
escapedcommieny

Short List of NASA Spinoffs:
Transportation-Advanced Lubricants, energy Storage System, New Wing designs, wt sav’g tech, impr.aircraft engines.
Health: Imaging breast biopsy, ultrasound, tissue stimulator, cool suits, programmable pacemaker.
ocular screening, voice-control wheelchair, diagnosis.
Industrial: advanced weld,high press waterstripping, interactive computer training,microlasers, bagnetic bearing systems, magnetic liquids,vitual reality,semiconductor cubing, windows visualreaders.
Sports training,portable coolers, golf ball aerodynamcs, purification,sterilization water,scratch resistant lenses,enriched baby food, selfrighting lift rafts, personal storm warning systems, emergency rescue cutters, emergency response robots, and TANG, just to name a few
tics.

Scoot

Ooooooh, so GE is the only company making money off of these space flights.

Hmmmmm, Glenn just mentioned how GE is sucking Obama’s little pencil dick on his show. How odd to put 2 and 2 together, GE is heavily into the aerospace industry.

ZenDraken

Compared to Obama’s Spending Spectacular, a shuttle mission is a drop in the bucket. Besides, this mission was scheduled years in advance, and there will only be a few more missions before the shuttle is grounded for good anyway.

And this particular mission is for Japan, because we made an agreement with them years ago that we’d haul their module up there.

And all that money is spent here on Earth, paying for people in high-skills aerospace jobs. At least we get some science and technology out of it. Better that than blowing billions on, for instance, ACORN.

escapedcommieny

Thank you, the companies making money Employ Americans
Lockheed Astronautics, Lockheed Missles and Space, Sverdrup, Rockwell, Boeing, United Space Alliance, Westinghouse,I-Net, Dynacs,etc. The KSC phone book is 2inches thick, not to mention the subs and suppliers. The benefits are felt nation wide.
Central Florida is Not just the Mouse House.
Scoot

I know what you guys are saying, and I agree that it’s keeping people working, but how much of the bankroll is taxpayer money that could be used a little more efficiently? It just seems like this is a big payoff to the big corporations involved with NASA, kind of like their own personal bailout.

Another thing that bugs me, is why aren’t these enviro-nazis and climate change kooks complaining about these launches? They love to bitch about SUV’s but they don’t say a peep about this.

escapedcommieny

Although the space shuttle gets the publicity, it is a tiny fraction of the space program. You don’t hear about Titan or Atlas, the Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard that are constantly improving our safety and information at the Cape.
The COLUMBIA was doomed before the launch by the
ENVIRONMENTALISTS, they insisted the foam protecting the shield tiles was not ‘friendly’ so NASA caved to PC and changed the formula. They not only said plenty they murdered our people. What still makes me sick, is the fact Columbia had time in those first seconds after launch to be diverted to a backup landing site in Morocco but they crossed their fingers the tiles would hold in reentry. GoodNight, Scoot thanks for the high blood pressure.