Weather a wild card as Atlantis readies for final shuttle launch
Kennedy Space Center (CNN) -- Despite a good chance of thunderstorms, Atlantis is fueled up and ready to blast off Friday morning in the final mission of America's 30-year space shuttle program.Barring weather-related delays, the last space shuttle launch will take place before noon. The end of an era will be upon us. What the future holds no one knows, but one thing is certain: for right now, America is out of the space business. Our astronauts will be hitching rides on Russian spacecraft to visit the International Space Station, and satellites will be launched from expendable vehicles (as has been the case for the majority of satellites for a while now).The very last launch for a space shuttle is set for 11:26 a.m. ET.
How the Hubble Space telescope will be repaired or space flight will advance is anyone's guess, but the smart money's on private enterprise once again leading the way...
That is all.
5 comments:
All you needed to do was to find a way to add "Carrie" into there somewhere for Teh Win.. :)
Good riddance. The US Government shouldn't be in any business, space or otherwise.
I'll disagree, slightly, Alan.
There's a pretty substantive argument to be made that the satellite network we use for communication falls under the infrastructure that the federal government is tasked with maintaining.
Kinda hard to do that if we can't get satellites up into space...
Paging Mr. Harriman. Is there a Mr. Harriman in the house?
Kinda hard to do that if we can't get satellites up into space...
No worries there - the unmanned rockets will still be launching sats into orbit. Although I think that really is a job for private enterprise. NASA or its successor should be pushing the envelope, not delivering it.
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