Endeavour Prepares to Meet with ISS this Friday
“One exciting aspect of this particular mission is the inclusion of Mission Specialist Barbara Morgan, NASA’s first ‘Educator Astronaut.’ I’m a firm believer in the ability of science to inspire young minds and challenge them to achieve great feats. Barbara’s journey into space will hopefully remind students and adults alike that dreams are achievable if you work hard, study hard, and persevere.”
With a time frame at the ISS from 11 to 14 days, the Endeavour will transfer a lot of cargo to the ISS and its crew from the space shuttle: food, water, air, fuel, equipment, and experiments. An additional piece of construction of the starboard truss section sent up will improve the size and capacity for the crewmembers living in the ISS, continuing a much needed construction job to improve many things, in addition to carrying much needed supplies.
The continuous building and repairing of the International Space Station, or ISS, has cost many countries a lot of money right from the beginning. And with each shuttle going up to rebuild and add this and that—the price keeps going on—not including the cargo they are carrying. Many people are asking if it is worth it.
For example, the Endeavour has been completely overhauled to launch this past Wednesday, carrying supplies and cargo up to the ISS. And our tax dollars pay for it all, right down to the screws used for its construction. This particular mission of the Endeavour has equipped the spacecraft with a brand new piece of technology that allows it to the shuttle’s batteries to not only hook-up longer but to operate for longer periods of time.
But what most people do not recognize is that the more we look at the universe, the more we understand where we live here on Earth. It is developing into a partnership that is benefiting both sides with or without the shuttles. And this is not bad—especially in the position that Earth and its inhabitants are in right now with global warming, environmental concerns, disease, water conditions, department of defense and their war games in space, along with many other concerns.
Sending the Endeavour to the ISS with precious cargo is not what it is all about even though when we see the beautiful spacecraft climb into orbit it is pretty hard to think of anything else, even though the ISS crew probably receives the food, oxygen and fuel like Christmas packages, and to heck with politics or other situations.
This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 10:51 pm and is filed under Public Relations, Space Agency News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
