Anyone that expects the space shuttle to be perfect has obviously NEVER manufactured or maintained anything. Ever had to take your car to the shop? Did you berate yourself for being so incompetant that you couldn't even keep your car running well? Of course you didn't. Things wear out and break all the time. Well designed systems allow us to know about the issues before people get killed.

Kudos to NASA for preventing tragic loss of life due to excessive system failures (excessive because redundant systems allow for some faults).

Just scrubbed again (Fri 9/8/06) with another bad ECO sensor reading. This is just plain embarrasing! How many levels of redundancy do they need for goodness sake, and do they understand what "redundency" means?

The shuttle is obviously just too old and should be mothballed now before we wast billions more on it.

Let the private sector deal with Space - they've shown they can do it, cheaper and faster than NASA ever could. It's time to get rid of the beurocracy - it's not worth the embarrasment that NASA has become to this great nation.

By all means, please fix the space shuttle with compassion. No need to lose more lives than there is lost at this point.

It seams that each and every time the Shuttle is examined just before flight time a "glitch" is found and the consquent result is yet another delay. Just yesterday the management team announced that all systems had a green light to go. Why can these so called "glitches" not be discovered until just before the last minute and it's time to lift off?
I believe there was a "fuel cell" problem discovered on a previous flight just shortly before the planned lift off.

Certainly we want to be sure it is perfectly safe to make the flight for the crew. They should never be put into harms way.But will they EVER get to fly the shuttle and do their jobs they have trained so long for?

one other matter that can and does cause delays,even if the shuttle is set and primed for a launch, is the very questionable summer months of unfavorable weather with storms and hurricanes, etc to deal with.

All in all NASA does not seem to be living up to its mandate to fly the remaining shuttles and to finally complete the construction of the space station. I seriously doubt that all these flights can be done prior to the 2010 deadline, in which case what will then happen if the space station can not be completed in the alloted time frame? Are we then looking at just a couple of flights a year, due to various delays,etc,so that the actual number may not be met.I wonder how much of public dollars is spent to get through each day's delay?

You're kidding right??? You do understand that a shuttle flying through the atmosphere has no more of an effect than the thousands of jet planes flying through the skies every day. A shuttle launch isn't going to trigger even a rain shower let alone a hurricane. If it was that easy, cloud seeding would be feasible.

Quote: Personally, I dont think NASA should launch a shuttle when the chances of a hurricane are high. The launch, in my opinion, disturbs the fragile balance of the atmoshere and may contribute to severe hurricanes. I think that the US should take every precaution it can not to rumble with mother nature during such a feble time as the middle of hurricane season.

Ianta Summers, WDC (Sent Sep 6, 2006 10:06:21 AM)

Maybe we should consider renaming Cape Canaveral, "Malfunction Junction".

Just what is a "Glitch" - in scientific terms?

I still have to recover from the last big news, where these big Nasa advisers resigned (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14400023/).

Technical problems are costly, but staying on the wrong course (as some others do too) makes the thing really worrisome. Why do we need this space station anyways? 'Serious' science is not the reason. Why do we push for 'manned spaceflight'? NASA is another example of big government meeting big business at the expense of the tax-payer.

I never criticize any delay due to maintenance problems (whether caused by NASA or by American Airlines). If it is broken, then by all means fix it. I would never advocate endangering anyone for the sake of a schedule.

My only question: NASA has already had several extra days to run diagnostics on the shuttle - why is this problem being discovered now when it will cause another delay??

Thanks for your report Tom. Seems to me that NASA will never be up to synch to do 15 launches a year as hoped for. What does this mean for US manned spaces future? To me it calls for a grounding of the current delivery system and dismemberment of a bureaucracy that has seen better days.

I believe the time has come to stop federally funding the “manned space flight” program because of recent advancements in the private sector, most significant of which are the launch and record breaking altitude record flight by “SpaceShip One,” signifying that the private sector is capable of carrying on such an initiative. This tiny single man spacecraft was specifically designed with new technologies to begin the “Space Tourism” industry. The monies would be better spent towards the war on terror and our lacking education system which once rivaled a world class prominance It signals with it the time to stop the reckless spending practices of a bureaucracy whose very existence depends on the waving of a pen in some Lobbyists war room. Certainly the “public sector” doesn’t have the experience NASA has; after all they’ve got the slogan: “Over 40 Years in Space!” “Spaceship One” is our contemporary version of Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek, and it’s the platform poised for things to come in the next 40 years as visioned by Aviation Pioneer and Industrialist, Burt Rutan:

"I am very excited to move forward and develop the worlds-first commercial, passenger-carrying Spaceships. This will truly herald an era of personal spaceflight first described by the visionary science fiction writers of the 1940's and 1950's. Richard (Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic) and I share a vision that commercially-viable and safe space tourism will provide the foundation for the human colonization of space. I am looking forward, (actually looking way up!) to working together with Richard on this next exciting phase."

Clearly the private sector is in control of its destiny. And Space Tourism is a long time in coming. Remember 2001 A Space Odyssey, Arthur C Clarks visional Sci-Fi epic was close to the mark. We can remember Dr. Floyd in the “Telephone booth” aboard Space Station. As he sits while making his call from space, a windowed backdrop of the familiar blue and white marble we call Earth, and the stations “spinning” combine to create the artificial gravity aboard the space platform, creating a nauseating parallel of a certain soon to be reality. By the way, the call charge from Space Station to Earth was a mere $1.29 then! Rutan and Branson are on track for their target too except for the fact that there are not enough scientific “Fresh-minds” to ponder the equations of mans certain place in space or a mission to Mars as some NASA officials target their eyes towards. Why not take all that money NASA’s been getting and let’s use it towards our education with specific emphasis on science and mathematics.

Our schools are lacking the support it needs to better equip the youth for our future in respect to sciences and mathematics. I am sure an infusion of money and a new Presidential call to order of what I call the “Q Initiative”- a revitalizing of our former world class position in the scientific and math communities. Those programs certainly outweigh the justifications for federal spending on the current space initiative. We once led the world in science and math, we must achieve this again, if we are to move forward as a society that is quite dependant on technology. And while I speak about technology, should we not be using the very latest technologies that would help us find terrorists that use caves as a place of refuge?

I am sure that we have in our experimental R&D shops scattered all over the globe, highly sensitive measuring tools that could be deployed to find terrorists hiding anywhere on the planet. The time is running out and society is losing patience on our “snails pace” with regard to this war on terror. Part of a yearly budget that NASA receives would certainly be better spent towards the finding of these thugs that want to use our planes, trains and automobiles to instill terror on our Worlds’ peoples. Let’s examine for a moment the amount of money NASA is allocated. This number is a staggering $6.2 thousand million dollars (2003 budget). So turning that monies direction toward the ideas I have described should be a no brainer. And I am sure taxpayers would prefer to see some of that back in their pockets as well as seeing all terrorists brought to justice. But is turning the direction of this money that difficult? After all, NASA has been procuring Space for over 40 years.

The vast accomplishments of NASA alone would sell me on a ride aboard the Space Shuttle. I got to meet Neil Armstrong once at a convention hosted by then Vice President Quayle. And at one time I worked for McDonnell Douglas for the Space Station program. Some great first hand experiences. They have had some hiccups and have killed some good people while trying to conquest space. NASA has broken some good machinery and has had things blow up before it even left the pad. But isn’t this like anything else man does.

When we put on a SCUBA tank and explore the oceans, there’s the same kinds of risks present. The whole business of putting a guy in a spacesuit and sitting him atop a rocket and lighting its fuse is more than the “cliché” of being “Rocket Science.” Its years of training, and thousands upon thousands of hours of research all directed toward the phrase “what if?” The same variables are there no matter what man is doing, whether it’s in space or below the oceans. I would also sight the fact that we know not nearly as much about our “innerspace” as we do “outerspace.” And our outerspace has been reached enough with the current tools and mechanisms that it really is no longer necessary to direct such efforts from a government level as we now possess the abilities to do this by private enterprise which hopefully can do a much better job. It’s in private enterprises best interest to do a good job in space. When hardware is designed and developed for people to buy a ticket and try the latest “G Ride” at a 50 mile orbit, it’s pretty inviting. It stimulates the senses and broadens our minds. And of course it’s great for the world’s economy. Everyone gets to build something and to be a part of it, well, it’s not only got some teeth, but it’s sexy too. Remember the day when the nation was introduced to the Mercury Astronauts? Those guys were bigger than life. And a country would put its best foot forward and do it successfully.

Personally, I dont think NASA should launch a shuttle when the chances of a hurricane are high. The launch, in my opinion, disturbs the fragile balance of the atmoshere and may contribute to severe hurricanes. I think that the US should take every precaution it can not to rumble with mother nature during such a feble time as the middle of hurricane season.