NASA nibbles its fingernails over Thursday’s space shuttle launch
Posted on 03. Nov, 2010 by Leon Kennedy in Headlines
The space shuttle Discovery, were it not for its capitalized “D”, would suggest a very exciting scientific development: the discovery of an unknown space shuttle; maybe from another planet, maybe from one of those neighboring countries which we so affectionately refer to as “hard-liners”. Instead, our capitalized “D” suggests the proper name of a space shuttle whose origins are completely accounted for and no doubt well documented as well. Boring!
Or is it? Space travel, even when not shrouded in mystery, is still pretty cool. What’s more, the space shuttle Discovery is reportedly carrying a humanoid robot as cargo. Will it befriend the other crew members (if any)? Will it lead a machine-revolt against humans? Will we learn all about it from a TV movie which did not really deserve to get funding?
For the time being, and barring unexpected and entertaining developments, the robot is being delivered to the International Space Station along with a storage module, and will become a part of the orbiting lab’s crew.
For the moment, NASA is concerned about the Discovery launch, scheduled for Thursday, because of an electrical glitch as well as some unfavorable weather predictions. NASAs shuttle integration manager, Mike Moses, who inexplicably failed to discuss the robot, what its name was, its height, personality, whether it felt shame, etc., had this very boring thing to say: “We fly with known risks, not unknown risks…Right now this risk is a little bit unknown.” Well, now there’s a risk of me falling to sleep as well!
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