Gotta admit I was selfishly pleased to see the launch scrubbed. It ain’t easy catching a mid-afternoon launch when you are Houston +13. That fuel sensor problem really seems like the undead issue. Can’t kill it.

I bet the commander, Eileen Collins, had deja vu when the window cover fell off on the launch pad — and not because of the falling foam that doomed Columbia. Collins had her foot on the gas for the scariest ride up in recent shuttle history, STS-93, when three cooling lines were ruptured by a falling pin during main engine ignition. Collins and her crew ended up short of their orbit, but the mission was a success. I’m pretty sure NASA had this in mind when they selected her for the program’s return to flight. She’s apparently quite cool under pressure.

I really wish NASA had a shuttle alternative in the functional prototype phase in the next year or so. By my calculations, even if the shuttle makes it to the 2010 mothballing date there will be several years — akin to the post-Skylab pre-shuttle era — where the US has no operational manned space vehicle program.

Ironic that that the two bright areas in manned spaceflight are private industry and communist China. What an odd space race.

Sidenote: You can get uncluttered live video and often telemetry data from United Space Alliance, the contractors who provide many of the ground operations to NASA.

Sidenote II: Does anyone know of any good space blogs? Why can’t I find this?

The Deep Impact probe successfully slammed into the Tempel 1 comet early on July 4th. Nice fireworks!

NASA hopes to analyze the cometary innards for clues about the composition of the early solar system.

See also video from the impactor point-of-view just prior to collision and
images from the flyby probe, Hubble, and an elated Mission Control.

Happy July 4th, America!

Launch set for July 13. Countdown begins July 10.

Mission status.

No, not my marriage — which is nine-years-old today, hooray! — but rather a description of the edge of the solar system which the spacecraft Voyager I has finally reached. Launched when the first Star Wars movie came out in 1977, this diehard explorer (and its twin) embody the best of NASA: trailblazing and science-oriented. If today’s NASA could regain that clarity of purpose we’d be so much better off than wondering how long we can keep a geriatric low-earth orbiting big rig from falling to pieces.

NASA

Voyager is truly alone now. Even the sun is just a pinprick of light. Here’s hoping someone — some thing — eventually encounters her golden cargo. Seeya, V’ger!

This is one of the funniest things I have seen in ages. The Old Negro Space Program is a ten-minute documentary that’s one part Negro Baseball League, one part NASA, and all Spinal Tap. The parody of the professor and the crappy Photoshopping cracks me up. Keep your eye out for Peter ‘Stinky Pete’ Carver.

As a sidenote, NASA had a single African-American astronaut, Robert H. Lawrence Jr., during the race for the moon, but he died in an air crash in 1967.

[Via Coudal]

Much has changed since the shuttle last went aloft, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t important for the US and for manned flight in general to get it back up a few times before phasing it out for something better and letting private industry take over orbital trucking.

NASA is still hoping to launch Discovery as mission STS-114 on May 15, though it is not at all certain they will hit that date and the launch window closes on June 3. As you might expect the spacewalks planned for this mission focus on feasibility tests of repairing damage during a mission. Also on the task list are delivery of the Raffaello module to the International Space Station and the installation of a digital camera (yes, they were using film) on the underside of the shuttle to snap pictures of the external tank separation. NASA has said that another shuttle could go up as early as June 14 if there was a need for a rescue mission.

Get ready, spacegeeks, live telemetry feeds will soon be coming your way!

That’s funny. I consider this to be a problem. Note to O’Hare and/or the city government. Quit quibbling about whose is bigger with Hartsfield and build a spaceport for god’s sake. Take one of these, float it out into the middle of the lake, launch stuff into LEO. Why? Because launching from the middle of the US obviates these.

Why do I not work for NASA?

For those of you who noticed that the NASA Administrator, Sean O’Keefe, resigned this week, do you care? Didn’t think so. I sure hope his successor realizes how much has changed since the shuttle last went up.