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Pat Duggins
Pat Duggins
Senior News Analyst
pduggins@wmfe.org

 

August 19, 2007—Mission managers had news for the crew of Endeavour. Right after yesterday's spacewalk, they were told to wrap up the transfer of cargo, shut the hatches, and get ready for undocking today. The approach of Hurricane Dean could threaten mission control in Houston, so landing day was being moved from Wednesday to Tuesday. The astronauts will still be landing with two damaged heat tiles following NASA's decision not to repair the damage. I had a great conversation about it with NPR's Ira Flatow during last Friday's Talk of The Nation "Science Friday". Here's a link if you'd like to listen in.

http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/2007/Aug/hour1_081707.html

Back to Hurricane Dean, and how serious is NASA about bringing the Shuttle down? Well, look at it this way. They’re thinking about opening up White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico as a back-up landing site. Shuttle watchers will tell you that’s serious. NASA has landed only one Shuttle there, and that was STS-3 back in 1983. Astronaut Jack Lousma was teamed with rookie Gordon Fullerton after the more grandiose mission for Columbia 3rd flight fell through. The Space Agency first wanted this mission to rescue the Skylab space station. Skylab veteran Lousma was supposed to go with Fred Haise of Apollo 13 fame to boost the abandoned space station. The first launch of the Shuttle fell behind schedule and Skylab burned up in the atmosphere.

But I digress.

STS-3 landed at White Sands, which gets its name from the gypsum dust there. The grainy stuff was kicked up into Columbia’s undercarriage and took weeks to clean out. NASA hasn’t landed there since. So, to have landing strips in Florida, California, and New Mexico ready for touchdown sends the message that NASA wants the Shuttle on the ground. A Wednesday touchdown is still possible, if Dean fails to threaten Houston, and our typical summertime rain postpones a Tuesday landing. In that event, the astronauts would orbit the Earth and try for Florida on Wednesday.

One last hurricane related thought. U.S. Senator Bill Nelson once shared with me the story of a package he received in the mail from former Astronaut "Hoot" Gibson. The two men flew together on Columbia’s mission STS-61Cwhen Nelson was in the U.S. House. When Gibson was preparing to leave NASA in 1996, he was going through his desk and found a photo of Hurricane Andrew taken from space. He sent it to Nelson as a momento, not only of their flight, but also the challenges Andrew created in Florida. The Andrew shot featured here is from the Marshall Space Flight Center. It shows Andrew’s progress from the Atlantic, across Florida and into the Gulf.

Photos courtesy of NASA.

 

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