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keeping my fingers crossed..
Seventeen minutes until launch.
I'm glad NASA went right to work fixing things after Columbia and worked so hard to make this day.
Godspeed, Discovery.
keeping my fingers crossed..
should I cross mine also?
That was awesome.
To say the least.
That main booster separation was spectacular.
Strange how until the last time they had that accident, no one really cared what NASA did, they had over 114 missions, and only 5 were shown live on tv.
They were under intense pressure to secure future funding.
Some lady on Fox news asked a NASA rep what have they learned in the last 10 years, The man could only come up with a new fabric to help fire fighters and some sort of vest for cops to wear, The lady told him they could have came up with that stuff here on earth, And she showed how much money NASA spends on each launch, The amount was so large that they figured the elderly over 65 years old could have free medical and two new cars in there garages,
She also asked the NASA expert what they learned crashing that Billion dollar space craft into that comet, he said they wanted to know what comets are made of. And they lady told him ok now you know so what now?
The NASA dude looked like a deer in the head lights.
Discovery comes to the rescue again, just like in 89 after the Challenger tragedy, it takes off to try to restore faith in the Shuttle program once again.
Hope everything goes smoothly.
Godspeed.
The shuttle program is state-of-the-art 1970's technology.
Nasa would be better served by developing a new space deployment vehicle. "Conventional" rockets are more economical than the shuttle, and it has been extended well past it's design life. It will soon be the B-52 of space.
Seriously. It is a gigantic waste of money at this point. The only reason they are still pushing the program is to complete the ISS and move onto building a base on the moon, and then mars.
Everyone of those shuttle launches drains money from actual scientific missions that learn a lot more than the pretty shuttle launch. Its such a damn waste.
I recently thought I heard about something lawmakers were trying to pass to be rid of the shuttle design by 2010...I'll see if I can dig it up somewhere.
Edit: I found something here:
link
Michael D. Griffin, President Bush's nominee to become the new NASA administrator, told senators at his confirmation hearing yesterday that he would reassess the agency's decision to cancel a space shuttle mission to service the aging Hubble Space Telescope.
Griffin also said he would do his best to hasten the development of a new spacecraft to replace the shuttle, noting that the scheduled retirement of the orbiter in 2010 could begin a five-year period in which the United States would have to use foreign-built spaceships for manned flights until a replacement is ready.
"I do not believe that we wish to see a situation where the United States is dependent on any partner," Griffin said. "It seems unacceptable to me that it should take from 2005 to 2014" to develop a new spacecraft.
Last edited by Bandit2981; 07-26-2005 at 10:27 AM.
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