Pat Flannery wrote:
On 7/2/2010 7:19 PM, Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:
And during those 25 minutes, what was the crew doing?

Keeping a very careful eye on the thing, and getting ready to flee
into the Soyuz lifeboats if it looked like it was about to hit them.
:-D I like the Russian statement about nothing critical being aboard the
Progress that is needed for the ISS.
If that's the case, then why launch it at all?

Yeah. I think that's one of those statements that is obvious and wrong and
right at the same time.

Yeah, it's not like, "oops, we missed this shipment, time to come home
immediately." On the other hand it could end up being a case of "Oops,
missed this shipment, better replan our next scheduled launch, conserve
toilet paper and other things" in the meantime.

Progress is great, but really need to keep shuttle a bit longer and get the
ATV to be flying on a more regular basis.

(I see the next one is scheduled for November and is named Johannes Kepler).

Damn, expected to cost $300 Million a flight, not including launch costs?
And folks call the Shuttle expensive.


In case it can't dock, keep an eye on ISS altitude he
http://www.heavens-above.com/IssHeig...alt=0&t z=CET
Because at some point it gets so low that a boost mission can't get it
up to a high orbit again by defeating atmospheric drag.

Pat

--
Greg Moore
Ask me about lily, an RPI based CMC.