NASA’s boondoggle is having trouble.

I worked on equipment for the space shuttle while at Lockheed Missiles and Fire Control in Grand Prairie, TX, on the radiators, and I saw the specifications.

There were Minimum sizes for components.

The only reason for this was to ensure that only the shuttle could carry them into orbit.

So, to paraphrase a The Daily Show correspondent, we need to have the shuttle to service the space station, and we need the space station to give the shuttle a mission.

What a clusterf%$#.

Space station oxygen, water computers fail

HOUSTON, Texas (AP) — Russian computers that control the international space station’s orientation and supply of oxygen and water have failed, potentially extending the space shuttle’s mission — or cutting it short.

Russian engineers aren’t sure why the computers stopped working. A failure of this type has never occurred before on the space station.

The station is operated primarily by the Russian and U.S. space agencies, with contributions from the Canadian, European and Japanese space agencies.

“We have plenty of resources, so we have plenty of time to sort this out,” said Mike Suffredini, NASA manager of the space station program.

But the computer failure could extend space shuttle Atlantis’ mission by at least a day and, in a worst-case scenario, force the space station’s three crew members to return to Earth early if the computers aren’t fixed.

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