Shuttle Discovery Lifts Off Successfully
After over two years and countless billions spent since the Columbia disaster, NASA has launched another mission of the space shuttle program.
NASA astronauts return to spaceflight (CNN)
Discovery roared into the blue skies over Florida this morning, marking the first shuttle flight since the 2003 Columbia disaster. The shuttle blasted off as scheduled at 10:39 a.m. ET, following days of troubleshooting to fix a faulty fuel sensor in its external tank. Discovery is scheduled for a 12 day mission to test new shuttle safety features and to deliver supplies to the international space station.
One hopes the mission goes off without a hitch and the crew makes it back safely. One hopes, too, that we find a less wasteful, anachronistic means of conducting minor experiments and launching payloads into space.
With this launch and the scrubbed launch, The taxpayer paid about 1 Billion Dollars.
I wonder what Burt Rutan would have charged??
Perhaps, there should be a “Request for Bids” put out for the next one.
2nd thought:
Wonder how much mass transit security this amount would provide.
I believe that this mission is a first step relating to the President’s effort to put a man on Mars. The Mars program is the lynchpin of Bush’s presidency. We will prevail over the naysayers.
Who left the doors to the asylum open?