When will this shuttle fly?

Endeavor: will this bird fly?

Endeavor will make a sixth attempt to launch. That’s slated for Wednesday. How much longer can this go on?

If the shuttle launches successfully on Wednesday, it wouldn’t be a record. Earlier shuttle flights were delayed until a seventh launch attempt.

Nonetheless, fuel leaks and bad weather and other problems seem interminable. My thought: keep delaying whenever there’s a problem. Safety first.

The fragile spacecraft

That said, ever since the Columbia disaster, the shuttle seems like a vehicle that’s almost too much trouble to fly. It’s primary mission seems to be inspecting itself after launch, and attempting to avoid damage by flying debris—both upon launch and in orbit.

I hope that NASA’s successor manned space vehicle is more hardy, as previous ones were. For example, Apollo 12 was struck by lightning twice as it ascended into orbit. And that mission continued on to perform a successful moon landing.

In any case, the current mission is scheduled to complete construction of a Japanese module on the International Space Station. Let’s get that station completed—before it’s scheduled to come down…