Comments on: Endeavour put on standby as rescue spacecraft

For the first time since July 2001, two shuttles are on their launch pads at the same time. Endeavour is on standby in case something happens on Atlantis' mission to fix Hubble.

Insane.

[HlLLARY CLITON]

beautiful photo

[gigrigg]

I was in second grade the first time they launched a shuttle. I am 35 now, and this design is still being used... amazing. Nice photo!

[sythara]

Space Shuttle... A great consept and a spectacular waste of taxpayer money. After the program was put into production all records of previous rockets were destroyed, to include Saturn V which is the only vehicle that can get us to the moon. Now we have to reinvent the wheel and watse more tax dollars.

Shuttle should have been used as a special purpose vehicle and capsules used to day-to-day space ferry.


Makes for a great photo though.

[Seaspray0]

sythara, if you were going to design a new car, would you dredge up the plans for a model T to base them from? I would hope they don't design any new spacecraft based on the saturn V rockets (the model T). But... you could be right. Having those plans could have shown them atleast the basics.

[Seaspray0]

This would also mean that the hubble telescope will be facing those 1-185 chances of damage for the same number of days as this mission. So if you divide those odds by the number of days for this mission, then multiply it by the number of days the telescope has been in orbit.... hmmm...why hasn't it been obliterated yet? I know it's not exactly a direct relationship because we're comparing a telescope to a shuttle, but it still makes me question those odds. I think it's more that Nasa is affraid of creating more dead astronauts and are taking the human factor very seriously.