NASA stuff
 

Atlantis rolls out to the pad August 29th. Endeavour rolls out to the pad September 23rd.

Atlantis launches October 8th. This will be the last time there will be two shuttles on the launch pad at the same time. Endeavour is the emergency rescue vehicle if something goes wrong with Atlantis since we're going to the hubble telescope and not the space station.

Ok - they say it was water ice on Mars, not carbon dioxide... Interesting. More on this later.

Why anybody would put something outside for over a month in September in central Florida is beyond me. Isn't it the peak of the hurricane season? Of course, we left a shuttle on the pad during a hailstorm last year...

Tom

I love it when you talk "space" to us, Tom!

Thanks for the update, which is always really interesting..

This "launchpad" talk is turning me on as well.:D

Sheesh..you Gals are really Horny..:o:D

Tom,

Who would have every thought that NASA would make me blush?

(It must be the Watneys.)

tom what ever you do dont tell DM you wear a uniform lol

thanks for the update,

Thanks for the update Tom!

Is it possible to get a pic of the two vehicles on the launch pad at the same time? Are the launchpads close enough to each other? I have one pic from years ago of Columbia and Challenger on pads at the same time (back in 1985?)

ALWAYS fun to hear your interesting news tom.

Thanks, Tom.

Emergency rescue vehicle IF something goes wrong...

I won't say what I'm thinking.

Sorry, but "Tom" makes me think of "Major Tom", from the old Bowie song. The original space cadet. Just how my strange mind works, sometimes.

Sounds like a slightly crazy idea Tom...but lets hope for the best on the hurricane issue.

On a completely different note and to hijack the thread...what did you think of the "When We Left the Earth" series on the Discovery Channel? As a kid who grew up a few miles from NASA and went to school with all the astronaut's kids, it was pretty fascinating to me. It was especially interesting to here some of the "newly declassified" details of some of the perils those guys experienced. It just so happens I have been reading Gene Kranz's "Failure is Not an Option". If you haven't read it, it is a pretty fascinating look behind the scenes of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo flight control programs. He states outright in a few places that they did quite a few things by the seat of their pants back then that we could never do now (including Ed White's first EVA by an American).

I did not see the series...

We're still doing things by the seat of our pants... Some things just have never been done before. You'd be amazed of our extensive use of duct tape...

ok - more trivia folks. The space station completed its 55,000th orbit yesterday (Thursday) and has now travelled over 1.3 billion miles. It takes about 1-1/2 hours to circle the planet. I have no idea why they tell us this stuff in the morning meeting...

Tom

LOL, Tom, they're just bragging about the mpg.;)