Discovery Set to Launch July 13

An anonymous reader writes "The US space shuttle is set to launch July 13 for the first time in nearly two and a half years, after being grounded following the 2003 Columbia disaster, NASA said today. NASA experts held a final 'flight readiness review' meeting on Wednesday and Thursday to make a final decision."

whaa?

[maotx]

What about the fact that NASA failed [earthtimes.org] to meet three vital safety recomendations Tuesday? [google.com]

I mean granted, I'm sure they know what they are doing but what happens if we lose Discovery too? We haven't launched in over two years due to Columbia blowing up and I can't even imagine what would happen to the space program if we lost Discovery. Even more so if it is because of one of the failed safety checks.

From my link:
The panel said that NASA had failed to satisfactorily eliminate losses of foam and ice from the shuttle's external fuel tank. Additionally, the agency could not adequately strengthen areas of the spacecraft that are at risk of being damaged by the impact of stray debris. The astronauts who are a part of the return to flight mission did not have reliable repair kits, the panel pointed out.

The shuttle

[jon855]

is just fine, I mean look at the number of the trip that it has made in the past without a problem and since one stray debris caused so much trouble. I think they should work on how to deflect debris rather than improve the shuttle itself.

Meanwhile...

[Black Parrot]

...more immediately and IMO more interestingly, Deep Impact [wikipedia.org] is going to do its stuff in about 4 days.

Re:oh no!

[richdun]

Nothing to worry about July 13th. All three major disasters for NASA have happened within the same calendar week (last week of January, first couple days of February), albeit 40 years apart (Apollo 1 - January 27, 1963; Challenger - January 28, 1986; Columbia - February 1, 2003).

Re:Please tell me they at least have the ability

[LiquidCoooled]

The Canadarm on its own cannot reach to the places required, however, the Canadarm creators (MD Robotics [mdrobotics.ca] have come up with an extension boom for the shuttle.

In orbit, this attaches to the end of the Canadarm and is able to inspect the entire surface.

They have a rather cool animated walkthrough and some images here [mdrobotics.ca].

Re:whaa?

[Robotron23]

Considering the advances made within the ISS during its years in space already, the astronauts on board don't just sit up there for months twiddling their thumbs, they do a lot of research on a huge variety of fields, such as theeffects of zero gravity on biological organisms. Also, the fact that Shuttles have consistantly maintained projects such as Hubble contradicts your views on its potential replacement! I think you need some trolling practice dude.

Re:Possible Problem

[rctay]

People wouldn't watch a channel devoted to science. They wanted crap. These same people are doing the voting for people making the decisions about space flight. Sometimes the limitations of a representative democracy is all to apparent.

Greeeeaaaat

[Reality Master 101]

$600 MILLION dollars to launch a shuttle, down the drain. I wonder how many probes that would buy? I wonder how many probes a year we could launch if all those resources were put toward them?

A hundred probes a year? A thousand, if we mass produced them?

I hate NASA and the culture of "we must put people in space no matter how wasteful and useless it is."

NASA and Commercial Space Transportation

[FleaPlus]

(The following is from a slashdot story I've tried submitting variations on a few times over the past few days, which has gotten rejected repeatedly for whatever reason. Since it's relevant to the topic of what NASA's planning on doing once the shuttle is retired, I'm posting it here)

At a recent talk, Michael Griffin outlined NASA's plans [space.com] for helping to generate a robust and competitive commercial market in orbital spaceflight. The speech [spaceref.com] and Q&A [spaceref.com] transcripts from the talk are available. In a move reminiscent of the US government kickstarting the early airline industry by purchasing airmail services, NASA plans on purchasing cargo delivery services to the International Space Station from commercial providers, followed by crew transportation after the systems have proven themselves. Unlike traditional government contracts, sellers wouldn't see a profit before the services are delivered and the emphasis will be on actual performance instead of process and specifications. Non-traditional space companies such as SpaceX and t/Space have found Griffin's remarks encouraging, and Aviation Week has some commentary [ecnext.com].