Ned Potter is the science correspondent for ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson." He has reported on such topics as space exploration, the human genome and climate change.
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Mission Endeavour
November 14, 2008 6:03 PM
(Update: 8:25 p.m. EST)
Space Shuttle Endeavour lit up the sky at the Kennedy Space Center as it launched tonight, racing up the east coast of the United States on its way to orbit
Seven astronauts are on board. Their flight is scheduled to run just shy of fifteen days.
By space shuttle standards, the flight of STS-126 sounds mundane: Endeavour is being sent to the International Space Station, carrying a second toilet...two small sleeping compartments for astronauts...an exercise rig...a refrigerator...a waste water recycling system (yes, astronauts in the future are expected to drink purified urine and perspiration; most say that's fine with them as long as they don't think about it very hard).
But, of course, sending astronauts into space is not yet mundane. The flight costs roughly $1.1 billion, the ship travels at 17,500 miles an hour, and the temperatures around them in orbit can go up and down by several hundred degrees in a few minutes.
Since the first components were launched a decade ago, the space station has never been able to accommodate more than three crew members at a time. After this flight, NASA says it will be ready for six.
NASA's updates of the flight are HERE. Descriptions of its payload are HERE.
This mission comes at a complicated time for NASA, as it is for the nation. Barack Obama has a transition team looking at space issues, led by Lori Garver, a NASA manager in the Clinton years who later tried (unsuccessfully) to become the first non-zillionaire to buy a seat to the ISS on a Russian Soyuz. Obama, who at one time proposed delaying the space shuttle's replacement to pay for education initiatives, changed course in mid-campaign and said he'd like to close the gap between the shuttle fleet's retirement in 2010 and the first flights of the new Orion spacecraft five years later. President Bush's "Vision for Space Exploration," to move on from space shuttles and on the the moon and Mars, is very much up in the air.
And then there's this: The Government Accountability Office put out a list of thirteen "Urgent Issues" (the quotation marks are theirs) the new president and Congress must face. "Retirement of the Space Shuttle" was one of them.
November 14, 2008 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (11)
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When Obama is sworn in, there goes our space program. Even though the lives saved by the inventions of the space program being applied to civilians, its not a DIRECT aid. The big old nasty companies that worked so hard to develope this stuff will make a profit!!! How dare they!!!! No, its done, and we will be on our way to 4th world nation status.
Posted by: locutus103161 | Nov 14, 2008 7:37:04 PM
You are absolutely wrong.
The end of the program is already planned.
You can see that at the site of NASA.
Posted by: Laane | Nov 14, 2008 8:09:21 PM
Obama will have a pro-science administration. That is in stark contrast to the young-earth creationist Palin or the idiotic comment by McCain calling a new projections system for one of the most famous Planetariums 'pork barrel' spending. Obama is not afraid of Science and Technology. McCain/Palin did not have a clue.
Posted by: Joe Meert | Nov 14, 2008 8:34:51 PM
At a time like this it seems they would put these expensive missions on hold. Atleast for a while.
Posted by: WeHadBetterWakeUp | Nov 15, 2008 12:44:52 AM
one of the major economic problems we face is that our world currency is no longer back by any real wealth just ask any german how lived in the 1920s about putting ones faith in paper currency.how emportent is our space program trapped in the electromagnetic signature of our sun is enouf mineral wealth to form a planet forty times the size of earth the sooner we industalize space the sooner we all can live without economic crisis like the one were in now
Posted by: robert read | Nov 15, 2008 1:12:47 AM
The biggest expense for space is manned exploration not space station maintenance.
Any President who wants to end Hubble and our current achievements does not understand the human race let alone Americans.
Nor does he understand the combination of knowledge and power.
America gave up the LHC to CERN and her knowledge dominance. Instead she put endless wasted money into endless wars--thanks to Bush-Cheney.
We are left with the joy of Hubble and a limited space program.
One win today for space.
Posted by: susan | Nov 15, 2008 5:01:29 AM
The whole space mission is AWESOME. I believe that if the same intense efforts were put into funding small businesses and creating well-paying jobs, this country would be more AWESOME - minus economic issues!
Bev
Posted by: Bev | Nov 15, 2008 8:57:09 AM
why do we need a space program i suppose when we have deleted all the earths resources and we cant breath any more we could go to another planet to find oxygen and bring it back.scientists make me laugh there so full of scientific crap to better the world its them that are messing it up in the first place with there egotistical mathematical horse manure all the money on space flights and they cant even make a blade of grass.
Posted by: bob | Nov 15, 2008 3:07:34 PM
I don't think he (Obama) would be anything but supportive of the space program. In fact, he has already asked whether or not it would be wise to extend the shuttle program for a few more flights. Compared with a lot of government programs designed to help people by making less dependent on themselves, the space program requires the only tiniest investment to show progress. Lets face it, for American, space truly is our last frontier. It is true that the returns from space are not always tangible in the near term. However, we know twenty years down the road, discoveries made along the road to space, pave the future with dividends thousands of times their initial cost. So no, the space program does not end with Obama, only the shuttle program.
Posted by: jrc903 | Nov 15, 2008 5:10:30 PM
The space program has been one of the few significant American bright spots in the last 40 years. As mentioned, it has also brought remarkable technology that has saved lives like various heart procedures. Nasa like much of the rest of American ingenuity seems to require a challenge of sorts, we really don't perform well as a people to "just to do the right thing". I agree that enabling smaller businesses to tackle hard problems like renewable energy (remember those little solar cells used on space vehicles back in the 70s? - hey I have those on my roof now generating 15KWhrs per day) would be great, we need a challenge for America beyond the obscure "science" and above the mundane survival of making a pay check.
Posted by: california girl | Nov 15, 2008 8:15:18 PM
Obama wanted zero to do with manned space until he needed Florida, California, and Texas to win. Then he copied and pasted McCain's website science info. Anyone who says different never paid attention at all. Anyone who makes unread statements as "why do we need a space program", "put these expensive missions on hold", really and truly don't understand much about the pace program in general or what it has accomplished or what it can do. NASA's budget is somewhere close to 0.6% of the national budget with welfare coming in about %30. If I had my way it would be reversed. At least people would be working and greater science would be achieved.
Posted by: PNA9876 | Nov 15, 2008 9:50:41 PM
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