Third Shuttle Flight Would Be Safe

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden

After months of relative silence, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden re-emerged this week to talk about the space agency’s future. Speaking at an AIAA conference in Orlando, Bolden discussed the upcoming space shuttle schedule and his aim to ensure that NASA’s is undertaking realistic missions in a sustainable way.

Florida Today reports that an additional shuttle mission to supplement the final two ones of the books is on the agenda, despite uncertainty in the space agency’s funding levels caused by Congress’ failure to approve the FY2011 budget:

> NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden today reiterated a commitment to fly a third shuttle mission this year and said the agency has determined the mission would be safe. > > The 2010 NASA Authorization Act requests the flight pending an assessment of its safety, which Bolden said is not yet final. Since no rescue shuttle would be available, the mission dubbed STS-135 would rely in Soyuz spacecraft to gradually return crew members from the International Space Station. > > (…) Read the rest of Bolden: Third Shuttle Flight Would Be Safe (332 words) > > * * * > > (C) Douglas for Parabolic Arc, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post > > Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

URL: http://www.parabolicarc.com/2011/01/06/bolden-shuttle-flight-safe/