Posted 9/06/2006 05:10:00 PM by Douglas

Again?!?

An electrical problem forced NASA to postpone Wednesday's liftoff of the space shuttle Atlantis yet again, and engineers faced with a tight launch schedule struggled to understand the problem.

About 11 hours before the scheduled midday launch, engineers discovered that a coolant pump that chills one of the shuttle's three electricity-generating fuel cells was giving an erratic reading. NASA rules say all three fuel cells must be working to launch, and if one fails in orbit, the shuttle must come home promptly.

NASA officials met for hours during the afternoon to figure out whether they could fix the problem, whether they could safely ignore it, or whether they would have to put the flight on hold for perhaps weeks.

Hmmm. . . Ignoring the problem? Hasn't worked out well for NASA in the past. Go fever is bad, but sometimes not going is worse. Who can tell?

"It was really one of those 50-50 decisions," said Wayne Hale, space shuttle program manager. "If you want high drama, this is about as good as it gets."

NASA officials wanted more time to analyze the coolant pump that chills one of the shuttle's three electricity-generating fuel cells since "there's something funny going on in that fuel cell," Hale said.

That's what the American people want to hear, Wayne. A 200,000 pound spacecraft is going to be hurled to the heavens on tons of explosives with a 50-50 chance its fuel cells have cooling. What's the worst that could happen? At least we've got some experts that know what they're doing, right? RIGHT?!?

The problem, located in a tiny car-like starter motor built in 1976, could be the wiring or something more. Complicating everything is the fact that NASA does not really know the inner workings of the system.

"The vendor sold us the thing and didn't exactly tell us how it works, amazing as that might be," Hale said.

Holy cow. The most complicated machine ever built has a starter motor from a '76 Vega providing cooling for its three essential fuel cells, and no one at NASA knows how it works? First off, bullshit. Secondly, ouch.