No New Shuttle Flight Unless Rescue Mission Can Be Guaranteed (from ATSNN), page 1

Shuttle flights carried out by the United Stats are said to not be resuming unless there is a support shuttle ready to carry out rescue missions in space, stated by the United State's space agency.

NASA have said that a new shuttle mission will not be held back if a second shuttle cannot be launched in time to rescue a crew on the International Space Station. The current reserve shuttle is 'Atlantis' and NASA have said that a rescue mission would only be carried out "in the most dire of circumstances and will not be used to justify flying unsafely".

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"In the unlikely event that all of our efforts to reduce risk and safely return the space shuttle to flight have failed, we have made plans to keep the space shuttle crew on the International Space Station and mount a rescue mission," NASA said in its latest report on preparations for shuttle flights.

"For the near term, we will not launch a space shuttle unless the second shuttle can be prepared and launched within the time the International Space Station can provide accommodation for the first shuttle's crew."

Atlantis is generally considered the reserve shuttle of the three remaining vessels. NASA said a rescue mission would only be carried out "in the most dire of circumstances and will not be used to justify flying unsafely."

Columbia broke up as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere on February 1, 2003, killing all seven crew. Following criticism of NASA procedures, the other three shuttles have been grounded since.

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After the Columbia disaster I am not surprised with NASA's current situation regarding safety. When people accuse NASA of not following safety procedures correctly I very much doubt that something of this scale would have flaws such as not following safety features. I would presume that everyone involved in the launch, flight and landing of the shuttle, on it and on earth, were 100% involved in making it a safe mission, unfortuantly we come across bad luck every now and then.

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[edit on 22-3-2005 by phixion]