So is NASA going to land the shuttle?

[Jara sang]

Is it going to become a permanent fixture to the International Space Station? Isn't it usually the norm to ground something BEFORE you launch it?

[0rganism]

1. Putting the cart before the horse is what 2day's republicans are all about

> Isn't usually the norm to ground something BEFORE you launch it?

That's like asking, "Isn't it the norm to show actual evidence of offense before invading a sovereign nation?", or, "Isn't it the norm to let scientific studies guide environmental policy?"

[Parche]

2. shuttle

They need more than Elmers glue for that missing tile on the
landing gear

[CottonBear]

3. Another question: do 2 shuttles consitute a fleet?

How many Soyuz capsules will it take to bring down all of the astronauts? Was the space station designed to have the shuttle permantly attached? Do we have a rocket that can launch people into space like the Soyuz? If not, why not?

[queeg]

5. There are three shuttles now

Current Fleet
Discovery 31 flights
Atlantis 26 flights
Endeavor 19 flights

Lost
Columbia 28 flights
Challenger 10 flights

Test Units
Pathfinder
Enterprise

[dmkinsey]

6. Maybe we could

build Soyuz's under license. Seems to be a pretty reliable design.

[SlipperySlope]

7. The reason why...

You asked why we don't have a rocket that we can use like the russians use the Soyuz.

Soyuz is early 1960's technology, roughly equivalent to our Apollo program. It is a highly reliable, simple, straightforward way to put people into space in capsules.

We abandoned Apollo for a variety of reasons. The primary one was that NASA wanted a reusable vehicle for our manned space program.

Unfortunately, the shuttle program was forced to adapt to shifting requirements several times during development. We ended up with sort of a swiss-army knife instead of a machine built to do one thing right.

[Emperor_Norton_II]

4. Yes, they are going to land the shuttle.

As everybody apparently likes to convienently forget, Discovery is not seriously damaged. In fact, it's barely damaged at all. It will return, it will land safely, the astronauts are not doomed, etc. etc.