NASA have re-designed the fuel tank of the Space Shuttles to eliminate the debris problem that caused the Columbia to disintegrate during re-entry.
Project managers called the step a major advance in returning the U.S. space program to manned flight after the shuttles were grounded when Columbia broke apart over Texas on Feb. 1, 2003.
The first reconfigured tank is to be shipped by Friday from a NASA facility near New Orleans to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida as the space agency prepares for shuttle Discovery's launch in May or early June.
"We are very close. We can taste victory here on shipping the tank," said Sandy Coleman, external tank project manager at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. The changes are aimed at preventing chunks of insulating foam from breaking off the tank during launch and damaging the shuttle.
Well, it's an improvement that reduces the risks of repeating past disasters.
Back To Luna
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has now received its full suite of scientists.
The U.S. Moon probe is the first spacecraft to be built as part of the Vision for Space Exploration, put into motion earlier this year by U.S. President George W. Bush. LRO is slated for a liftoff in the fall of 2008, under the auspices of NASA's Robotic Lunar Exploration Program.
The LRO underpins NASA's interest in replanting human footprints on the Moon. President Bush has called for the space agency to conduct the first extended human expedition to the lunar surface as early as 2015, but no later than the year 2020.
Not only will LRO characterize future robotic and human landing spots, the spacecraft will be equipped to inventory possible resources for human crews to live off the land -- in this case what's available on the crater-pocked Moon. Another key duty of the LRO is to characterize the lunar radiation environment and its impact on humans.
It's going to be mighty, mighty hard to live off the moon but heck, I'm sure there are plenty of good reasons to go back to the moon. :)
- Art Neuro
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