Shuttle Trouble

As delightful as it has been to see NASA's viability become a bidding war between Barack Obama and John McCain here, offers to extend the life of the dated and aging Space Shuttle do not make much sense. But I don't want to complain about the political attention, even if it's based on pork-barrel politics. On the 100th anniversary of the birth of Lyndon Johnson it is fitting to celebrate the wisdom of having spread NASA centers all over the map, eventually to become integral to the constituencies of more than just Florida, Texas and California.

Walter Mondale shaped the template of New Left suspicions of NASA and American Exceptionalism when, as a Senator from Minnesota he kept the heat on the Apollo program during it's first deep self-examination following the Apollo 1 fire. Until the Democrats regained their control on Congress in 2006, their Old New Left had downplayed the role John Kennedy and Johnson had played in the ensuring NASA's success well into the first term of President Nixon. It was in those days that Apollo was scrapped. It's replacement, for better of worse, was the Space Shuttle, built around the specifications necessary to deploy the Hubble Space Telescope.

Five years after it's original due date, in April 1981, Columbia was launched. An additional decade was necessary to lift Hubble into the highest of Low Earth Orbits, bumping up against the lower boundaries of trapped radiation in the Van Allen Belts. The ESA's ATV bares a remarkable similarity to one proposed replacement to Apollo, that would have kept the Saturn booster in production. All those decisions made by Congress and NASA, both thirty years ago and this past year, are coming together, over the next few months, in scenarios as ironic as any failed long-term policy can be in a nation built on short-term budgets.

The Shuttle's retirement is already underway, in a systemic work plan that required years of methodical planning. It isn't as though the Orbiters can just be parked, and sealed off with chalks wedged under the landing gear. A year of environmental impact studies alone have been part of the Shuttle's power down, along with the loss of a significant segment of a seasoned talent pool specializing in Shuttle performance.

Shaking off the past to embrace a renewed mission to the Moon is proving difficult for NASA. The end of the Hubble mission, twenty years after launch, was hard to face, but her day is done. Adaptive optics and segmented mirrors has resulted in telescope power on Earth that, in many cases, surpasses the Hubble. The Webb telescope and the promise of manned or robotic telescopes on the Moon calls for more than a new set of glasses and the stressful juggling needed to deploy Atlantis and Discovery in Hurricane Season.

It's probably too much to ask, but it would be nice for NASA's well-meaning friends to consider that the continued delays to the inevitable end to the Hubble and Shuttle era has shaped the timing and safety of Constellation, already being built, even as it is already receding into the "Out Years."

Shuttles Have Tank Troubles
By Craig Covault/Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

Initial launch pad checks of the space shuttle Atlantis for its mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope should be getting under way during the first week of September, pending the resolution of orbiter/external tank umbilical mating difficulties.

Atlantis was to roll out to Launch Complex 39A as early as Aug. 30. But United Space Alliance technicians had difficulty extracting a jammed ground support system bolt used to initially align the hydrogen umbilical side of the tank's massive rigging structure with the orbiter's belly.

Engineers were evaluating whether there was any damage to the bolt hole on Atlantis before proceeding. Although Kennedy Space Center was closed for three days because of Tropical Storm Fay, the launch team still has about a week of margin to the planned Oct. 8 launch date.

But there are also external tank issues with the Endeavour flight hardware that will be rolled to Launch Complex 39B to be ready for any rescue of the Atlantis crew during its Hubble servicing mission, which will have no International Space Station safe haven capability. While lifting the 155-foot tall Lockheed Martin tank to the vertical position in the Vehicle Assembly Building, several technicians heard a noise that sounded like a piece of loose hardware falling inside the sealed tank.

If there is loose debris, such as a small bolt, inside the tank, it could have catastrophic consequences during launch, if not for rescue, then on its November station mission.

Engineers have been using X-rays and other means to assess whether there is any debris inside and whether internal filtering systems would be able to safely catch it before it could be sucked into a main engine, causing an explosion. But the issue must be resolved before the Atlantis Hubble mission is approved for launch.