Astronauts Hook Up Harmony in Lengthy Spacewalk

Tech.Luver writes "Astronauts spent seven hours in space to finish preparing the International Space Station for its next addition — Europe's first permanent space laboratory, the Columbus laboratory — which is sitting in the cargo bay of space shuttle Atlantis at Cape Canaveral, Florida launch pad — set to lift off on December 6."

Re:facebook tracking is getting ridiculous

[Lord Aurora]

Legit article is here [techluver.com].

That link is hosed...

[Ellis D. Tripp]

How about one that actually works?

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/071124-expedition16-third-spacewalk.html [space.com]

Its under Related Stories

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like a mis-post got promoted to the front page, and the corrected post is under related stories. Here is the link:
http://techluver.com/2007/11/25/astronauts-hooks-up-module-in-lengthy-spacewalk/ [techluver.com]

Looks like even the original story is missing that apostrophe :Astronaut's hooks up module in space.

Ok ok, bad joke. :p

KSC versus Cpae Canaveral

[ExportGuru]

Shuttles launch from NASA Kennedy Space Center Launch Complexes 39A and 39B, and not from Cape Canaveral, a geographical feature separated from KSC on Merritt Island (mostly) by the Banana River lagoon. The launch complxes on Cape Canaveral and the "Skid Strip" there are part of the Cape Canaveral Air Forse Station. Let's get it right. NASA can use the credit for what it has and does at KSC. - I used to work at KSC and still live nearby on Merritt Island.

Re:NASA's a Joke!

[Chris Tucker]

They are doing what they have been tasked to do by Congress, with the monies provided to them by Congress.

They may not be doing it the way YOU want. Tough. Sucks to be you.

Why not run for Congress, win a seat, and work your way up to be the chair of the comittee that funds NASA.

Then they will have to do things YOUR way.

Forgive me if I don't hold my breath waiting for THAT to happen anytime soon.

Re:NASA's a Joke!

[jayp00001]

As a civilian agency they better not be following congressional orders. You can find the text of the act that created NASA here http://www.nasa.gov/offices/ogc/about/space_act1.html#POLICY [nasa.gov]. They're purposed as a civilian agency with congessional oversight. They get money from congress- not orders.

Re:Really?

[PeterBrett]

Then we have Spacex. They have launched 2x and are still not in orbit. The amazing thing is that ALL of their tech is a NASA derivative. That is, they did not do the research (though they are doing a bit of their own development). Currently, the payments for these 2 launches come from where? NASA. So, NASA is funding them. In fact, if you have been following the pace of COTS lately, you would realize that Spacex is putting pressure on NASA to give them a contract to service the ISS very quickly. In addition, NASA is likely to select SpaceDev for the second go of COTS2. They have also hinted that they want guarenteed sales to the ISS after they have launched. Considering that they are going to start by using deltas to launch their vehicle, they will have a good shot at 2010 flights.

Firstly, saying that all of SpaceX's technology is a NASA derivative is somewhat obvious -- because all rocket launcher technology is derived, directly or indirectly, from either from NASA's research or the Russian space agency's.

Secondly, NASA hasn't paid a dime towards the two Falcon 1 launches that have been carried out so far -- they were funded by DARPA, because the Air Force wants cheap access to space too (one of the other goals is very fast order-to-launch capability). NASA is helping to fund the development of Falcon 9 (the heavy launcher) because it looks like a there's a good chance that between the space shuttle program ending and Ares coming online, they'll either be depending on SpaceX or the Russians for access to the space station. It's not SpaceX putting pressure on NASA -- it's NASA being enthusiastic about what SpaceX are doing, and worried about the political ramifications of giving billions of dollars more to the Russians to fly twice as many Soyuz missions.

Finally, the reason SpaceX have had two "failed" launches so far is because they're trying to move much more quickly and cheaply than the traditional approach, which is not to launch anything until they're absolutely certain it'll work flawlessly. Getting it Right First Time is very expensive.

I was at a talk given by Elon Musk about SpaceX recently, and he was saying that the way SpaceX is working is making their design work cost a tenth of what they estimate it would cost Boeing or Lockheed-Martin to do the same thing.

I think you're trolling.

Re:NASA's a Joke!

[Chris Tucker]

Yeah. Sure.

If NASA decided to do something of which Congress disapproved, how much longer would the NASA budget be funded?

Bush says, "YEEHAW! We's goin' to MARS!", NASA says, "Yassah, master George!" Bush tells Congress, "Yew boys don't spend too much on thishere Mars thing, hear?" and Congress says, "Yassah, master George!".

Or, more to the point. DOD told NASA EXACTLY what the dimensions of the cargo bay were going to be, and what the lift capacity of the Shuttle would be.

So much for being a civilian agancy.

I stand by my previous statement. They do what Congress tells them to do. Congress tells them what to do via the budget.