Playing It Safe For The Return To Flight

NASA is most assuredly playing it safe when the space shuttles return to flight next year. In both of the first two launches, the space agency plans to have a back-up shuttle on the pad, ready to go in case of emergency.

"After that, we will take a look and evaluate. .. and see where we need to go from there," said John Casper, a former astronaut now leading NASA's effort to implement recommendations made by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. He was quoted in the newspaper Florida Today.

Discovery is the first shuttle set to launch next Spring. If something goes terribly wrong with that flight, its crew will divert to the International Space Station. If that happens, the shuttle Atlantis will be ready to launch on a rescue mission within 45 days. If, during the second shuttle mission following the February, 2002 Columbia disaster, there is a life-threatening problem, a rescue mission could be mounted to the ISS within 58 days.

In both cases, the time lag represents what NASA believes to be the limit of food and water aboard the ISS.

"We need to understand the fixes that we've done we need to understand how well the systems work," shuttle program manager Bill Parsons was quoted by the paper as saying.

Florida Today also reports the initial requirement to launch shuttles only in daylight could also go away after the first two successful missions. By eliminating both requirements as set forth by the CAIB, NASA will have made great strides in meeting President Bush's vision for the Moon, Mars and Beyond. That vision requires the ISS be completed and the shuttles retired by 2010. To do that, the shuttles will have to fly up to six times a year.

FMI: www.nasa.gov