A former NASA engineer has said NASA should consider postponing Wednesday\u2019s scheduled launch of the space shuttle Discovery. <\/p>\n
NASA said Tuesday night it had discovered, and fixed, a problem as the shuttle sat on the launch pad \u2013 but despite this Tom Noyes has said he isn\u2019t happy with the explanation \u2013 although failed to give absolute reasons for his concerns. Noyes spent about eight years at mission control training astronauts how to operate the space shuttle software. He saw TV reports noting a window shield had fallen off a Flight Deck window, and struck the left OMS Pod Engine Thermal Protection System (TPS).<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe cover fell off and hit this orbital manoeuvring system,\u201d said Noyes to Local Charlotte News. \u201cThis is the engine it uses after she gets into space..\u201d<\/p>\n NASA said it had replaced the damaged tiles and that Discovery was ready for lift-off \u2013 which was scheduled for 3:51 pm EDT Wednesday.<\/p>\n He said he\u2019s confident in the space agency\u2019s decision to move forward \u2013 but, he says, there is a larger issue to consider \u2013 one that may warrant delaying the launch.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are things that happen to the Orbiter that it\u2019s not designed for so, is this just one more thing that is happening that they\u2019re not catching, is this a sign of some other larger problems?\u201d Noyes said.<\/p>\n The former NASA engineer said it\u2019s important for America to return to space.<\/p>\n <\/font><\/p>\n \u201cKids dream about being an astronaut,\u201d Noyes said. \u201cWe need to keep that dream alive and not stop at the shuttle\u2013we need to put together the next generation of launch vehicles.\u201d<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n <\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A former NASA engineer has said NASA should consider postponing Wednesday\u2019s scheduled launch of the space shuttle Discovery. NASA said Tuesday night it had discovered, and fixed, a problem as the shuttle sat on the launch pad \u2013 but despite this Tom Noyes has said he isn\u2019t happy with the explanation \u2013 although failed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42352"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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