Word: endeavour
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Ground controllers at nasa began two months of long-distance testing to determine whether the refurbished Hubble Space Telescope will now work as advertised. In five space walks, astronauts from the shuttle Endeavour replaced solar panels and gyroscopes, upgraded computer components and installed a set of corrective lenses designed to help the nearsighted telescope peer to the edge of the universe...
...launch date for the Hubble Space Telescope repair mission loomed during the waning days of November, NASA's veteran spin controllers did their best to lower public expectations. The seven astronauts who would ride into orbit aboard Endeavour faced the toughest assignment ever handed to a shuttle crew and the most complicated mission since the moonshots of two decades ago. They would have to wrestle huge pieces of machinery into tight spaces, disconnect and connect fragile electronic equipment, and make sure no loose screws damaged the delicate telescope -- all while wearing puffy pressure suits and bulky gloves in a vacuum...
...were these spin doctors trying to fool? As it turned out, Endeavour's exquisitely trained crew made Mission Impossible seem as simple as building a Lego-block spaceship. The "Dr. Goodwrenches," as Mission Control dubbed them, not only breezed through every job on their work order and a few more on the "just in case" list, but they also made it look like fun. "Piece of cake!" shouted Kathryn Thornton, perched atop the shuttle's 50-ft. robot arm as she sent a mangled solar-energy panel off into space like a falconer letting her bird take wing...
...spacefarers did more than salvage a telescope that has cost taxpayers $2.7 billion (including the $693 million repair bill for Endeavour's house call). The astronauts also created a kind of time warp. For a few days, America was back in the 1960s, an era when space was a grand frontier to be tamed, and when NASA's technical brilliance and right-stuff bravado made the agency seem virtually unstoppable as it sent men into orbit and on to the moon...
Thus after last week's triumphant repair mission, relieved NASA officials are now saying, "Thanks, Endeavour, we really needed that." The mission proves that astronauts can handle construction and repair work in orbit -- the skills essential to NASA's pan to build and operate a space station by the end of the decade. Yet space extravaganzas are no longer enough to keep the public and Congress behind the space program. The questions that haunted NASA before the Hubble mission won't go away. Why does the U.S. need a space program anyway? Should the nation be risking lives and spending...