Space Forum / Shuttle / August 2005

All,
I know the very first flight of a shuttle was supposed to be
in 1979 and if I remember well, the two-year delay was caused
by these factors:

found this taken in May 05:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zcasper/13979005/in/set-338055/
Anybody have insight into what is going on here?  It appears the
forward rcs module as detailed here:

I just wondered what might prompt them to use discovery again? Is there
something fitted to that orbiter which is not on the others? Being as they
are probably going to have to destack the Atlantis anyway to fix the tank,
its seems odd to me to make such a decision.

Space Shuttle Status Report
Wednesday August 17
Difficulties with alignment of the aerodynamic tailcone with the aft end of
the Space Shuttle Discovery have forced a further postponement of the

NASA Targeting March for Next Shuttle Launch
NASA is now targeting March 2006 for the next Space Shuttle mission,
STS-121. This will be the second test flight to the International Space
Station in the Shuttle Return to Flight series.

MSNBC.com (Oberg/Boyle): Next Shuttle Launch in March 2006?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8963280/#050817a
Cosmic Log: by Alan Boyle
Aug. 17, 2005 | 4:30 p.m. ET

Space Shuttle Status Report
Tuesday August 16
Engineers and technicians have decided to postpone the departure of the
Space Shuttle Discovery on its ferry flight from NASA's Dryden Flight

<
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Time to dust off your super microscope and try to win the grand prize.
<

If I remember correctly, Aviation Week and Space Technology successfully
sued for release of pictures concerning the crew compartment wreckage that
were used in the investigation of the accident but not published in the
final report.  Were these ever published?  Are they ...

Yikes. Just caught a few minutes of the McLaughlin group (which for the
record is a Sunday news talk show which is essentially a few talking
heads yelling at each other). They brought up Discovery's recent
mission.

Vibrations during launch of the shuttle caused the gap fillers t
protrude outward from between the tiles.
Why the hell weren't these gap fillers adhesed into the area betwee
the tiles? The gap fillers were removed with disturbing ease while i

As a lay man, it seems 'odd' to have all those feed lines etc running
externally along the tank and hence requiring the foam ramps etc to smooth
airflow.
Is it simply because of the extra cost that these are not run internally?

Does anyone know wether the ET carries a network of vibration/acceleration sensors?
- Carsten

This came into the inbox today ...
-- rk
Readers of this listserv may be interested to know about this upcoming
program.  Thanks to Roger Launius at the National Air and Space Museum

I go out and when I come back nowhere seemsto hae the info.
They seemed much faster off the mark with Shuttle news. Maybe everyone who
was on that are now catching up with their sleep!
Brian