http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=203165-1 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16473224
If the "buzz" turns out to be true, then keeping Atlantis in the launch rotation would give NASA extra flexibility as it struggles to complete the International Space Station on time by 2010. One Shuttle has to be on "rescue stand-by" as another craft blasts off, in case of launch day damage like on Columbia in 2003. This possible delay to Atlantis’ retirement does mean either the Smithsonian, Kennedy Space Center, or Johnson Space Center will have to wait for a Shuttle to put on exhibit. Those facilities reportedly have "dib’s" on a Shuttle to display once the fleet is retired. In "Final Countdown", I speculate over which of the three surviving Shuttles is most historic. One did the first MIR Docking, another was NASA’s last "first flow" vehicle, and another performed both of NASA’s return-to-flight missions after the Challenger and Columbia accidents. Turn to the epilog and you can read it in greater detail. You do have a copy, don’t you? ;) Anyway, at the top of this blog are links to my talk on C-SPAN’s BookTV, and my interview with NPR’s Scott Simon, if you like. I’ll update this entry, as details come out. More to come-- |
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January 16, 2008—The rumor mill is buzzing that Space Shuttle Atlantis may not be put "out to pasture" following this year’s planned August mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. The original plan was to retire Atlantis from the fleet this year, rather than put the spacecraft through a lengthy and expensive modification period, which might not allow this Shuttle much flight time before the program’s scheduled end in 2010. This shot of Atlantis above is from STS-74 where Commander Ken Cameron and his crew, looking out the windows, were photographed by Cosmonauts aboard the Russian Space Station MIR in 1995 prior to NASA’s second docking between the Shuttle and the older Russian outpost.