I suppose you can never be too safe when launching people into space. NASA this week announced that it is ordering more repairs to the space shuttle Discovery, after finding even more cracks on the ship’s fuel tank.
The ship’s launch–set to be its last–has been plagued with delays since it was first scheduled since early November, due to weather, electrical problems, and most recently, a number of cracks discovered on its fuel tank. The newly discovered cracks were located on the rear of the tank, discovered with the help of X-rays.
NASA is understandably pretty jumpy about such things–a problem with the fuel tank was determined to be the cause of the 2003 Columbia disaster, which led to the death of seven astronauts.
According to NASA, the launch is still scheduled for February 3rd, but further work could delay the launch yet again.
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