Rules may be bent to launch Discovery

Monday, July 25, 2005

With the problem with the fuel gauge still unexplained NASA has announced that in may bend some of its long-standing safety rules to launch the Space Shuttle Discovery on time. NASA managers have decided to launch with just three of the four fuel gauges working if the problem reappears Tuesday, however this would mean disregarding the rule created in 1986 after the Challenger explosion. In a press conference on July 13, NASA officials commented that they have never in the past flown a shuttle with less than four sensors working.

"There's very little in life that is 100 percent guaranteed, and there's probably less in rocket science that's 100 percent guaranteed," deputy shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said over the weekend. "That is part of the risk we take."

Discovery and the crew of 7 are set to blast-off for the International Space Station at 10:39 a.m. Tuesday morning. This will be the first launch since the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster two and a half years ago.

Sources

Yahoo News. "NASA May Bend Rules to Launch Discovery" — Yahoo News, July 25, 2005

Share this:

The text of this article has been released into the public domain. In the event that this is not legally possible, this article may be used for any purpose, without any condition, unless such conditions are required by law. This applies worldwide. Copyright terms on images, however, may vary, so please check individual image pages prior to duplication.
Please note that this only applies to Wikinews content created prior to September 25, 2005. All content created after that date is released under a Creative Commons license which is mentioned at the bottom of each article. This is currently the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.