Shuttle Launch Thu Dec 6th

Great shots Anthony! I didn't get to the Astronauts' Hall of Fame this time though of course we drove past it twice on the way back towards Titusville. A couple of obvious things have changed - a brick wall has been built between the road and th S1b, and the Titan/Gemini exhibit is being refurb'd.

I'll have a gallery up by the weekend, honest But here's a sneaky-beaky...

It's Mercury/Gemini Mission Control - remember for Apollo, Skylab and Shuttle this role moved to the Johnson Space Center near Houston, Texas, but for the first two series it was at Cape Kennedy.

Launch postponed until 8:45 pm UT on Saturday. Problem with sensors on the fuel tanks. if launch does go ahead on Sat, docking with ISS on Monday evening (prob) not confirmed, so ISS passes on Sun and Mon nights could be good for seeing the shuttle as well.

Let's hope the flight will not be cancelled because there is no other opportunity within the current planned life of the shuttle program to put the Columbus laboratory module into orbit and connect it to the ISS. If that happened there would be no rationale for ESA to continue supporting the ISS once NASA switches its operational priorities to supporting a return to the Moon and an eventual trip to Mars.

NASA have to be so careful now - the Shuttles are all old - even Endeavour is 16 years old and remember 40% of those built have been lost - not a good record by any standards.

When we lost Columbia it was pretty much touch and go as to whether we'd lose the ISS too, so it's better that they err very much on the side of caution - another orbiter loss and the remaining two become museum pieces and the ISS and HST stay as they are.

I would prefer that the ISS be abandoned rather than see another shuttle crew lost. what I'm pointing out is that is the Columbus lab module doesn't fly the ISS is likely to be shut down sooner rather than later and the ESA will be left with a major white elephant - and that would make funding for new manned space operations harder for the ESA to get in the future.

This is now scrubbed until 2nd January 2008 at the earliest - big problems with the fuel systems.