However much man might have made scientific advances, humans cannot match up to the Nature. The latest example is today’s postponement of the launch of the space shuttle Endeavour by NASA.
The National Aeronautical Space Agency said yesterday it was delaying Endeavour’s STS-130 mission by a day because of “low cloud ceiling” over Cape Canaveral early Sunday morning.
The cancelled lift off was to be the shuttle’s last nighttime launch. Endeavour and its crew of six are to deliver during their 13-day excursion a new room, dubbed Tranquility, to the International Space Station along with an observation dome that will allow for panoramic views and also function as a robotic control station.
The crew plans to conduct three spacewalks during the last major construction project at the nearly complete space station.
The pre-dawn launch was aborted just nine minutes before the scheduled lift off when the sky remained overcast. NASA scientists did not want to take any risks. “We tried really, really hard to work the weather. It was just too dynamic,” launch director Mike Leinbach said to the six Endeavour astronauts.
The launch was to have been visible, to varying degrees, to those along the east coast of the United States.
The threat from weather could possibly clear Monday but the threat from President Barack Obama to the shuttle program is potentially more serious. He has decided to cancel the current shuttle replacement plan.
The decision to cancel the Constellation program, as the replacement plan is known, comes in the wake of a $1.26 trillion federal deficit projected for 2011.