Naaaaah, Zac !! ;-)

It's got our Andy baby on board !!!

He can't perish -- he's too dang intelligent & invincible !!!

;-0

HOOROO ;-0

UNCLE WALLY

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Zak@home.com wrote:

Nasa rules against shuttle repair
Nasa has decided a further spacewalk to repair a torn thermal blanket
on the shuttle Discovery is not necessary.
The US space agency told the seven crew members the shuttle would be
safe for re-entry, due on Monday, despite the torn blanket below the
cockpit window.

On Wednesday, astronauts removed protruding material from the
orbiter's underside which was threatening the heatshield's integrity.

It is the first mission since Columbia overheated and broke up on
re-entry.


If Nasa had decided upon a further spacewalk, it would have been the
fourth carried out by the Discovery crew.


Mission Control announced its decision to the crew by saying: "We have
good news".

It later said mission managers debated the issue for several days, but
decided, "the blanket is not an issue for heating as the space shuttle
goes through the high temperatures of re-entry and neither is it a
problem in terms of debris."

Astronauts Soichi Noguchi and Steve Robinson have already done three
spacewalks, including a pioneering one around the shuttle itself.

Critical report

Earlier, deputy shuttle programme manager Wayne Hale said Nasa's
concern stemmed from an abundance of caution since the Columbia
disaster.

"I think in the old days we would not have worried about this so
much," he told journalists. "We're just pounding this flat. We're not
going to leave any stone unturned at this stage, to make sure the crew
is safe during re-entry."


The atmosphere almost looks like an eggshell on an egg, it's so very
thin
Commander Eileen Collins

Meanwhile, controversy has broken out over whether the space agency
heeded warnings about possible technical problems to Discovery ahead
of its launch.

A leaked internal report from last December warned of deficiencies in
the way insulation foam was being applied to parts of the fuel tank to
be used by Discovery.

A piece of foam fell off the tank during Discovery's launch, prompting
Nasa to ground its entire shuttle fleet.

But despite strong criticism about practices at the plant in New
Orleans, managed by Lockheed Martin, the report did not recommend
against launching the shuttle, the New York Times reports.

A Lockheed Martin spokesperson told the newspaper that it would "defer
to Nasa regarding specifics of the memo" but strongly emphasised
"safety and quality are the guiding forces behind our workmanship on
the external tank".

'Environmental damage'

Discovery is currently linked with the International Space Station,
orbiting 352km (220 miles) above the Earth.

Commander Eileen Collins described on Thursday how widespread
environmental destruction on Earth could be seen from the shuttle.

"Sometimes you can see how there is erosion, and you can see how there
is deforestation," Commander Collins said.

"It's very widespread in some parts of the world. We would like to
see, from the astronauts' point of view, people take good care of the
Earth and replace the resources that have been used."

In her conversation from space with Japanese officials in Tokyo,
including Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, she said her view from
space emphasised how Earth's atmosphere must be protected too.

"The atmosphere almost looks like an eggshell on an egg, it's so very
thin," she said. "We know that we don't have much air - we need to
protect what we have."