Take Off, Eh?

By now the space shuttle Discovery was supposed to be in orbit. This would have represented NASA's first manned launch since the one that ultimately doomed Columbia in 2003. However, the mission ended up being scrubbed a few hours before the scheduled launch because of a faulty fuel gauge. It has now been rescheduled for Saturday.

On the one hand, it's good that NASA is being careful, but one can easily be overly cautious. For example, I once used to own an old Dodge Dart that had a sticky fuel gauge. It was an inconvenience, but I didn't stop driving the car because of it. Besides, sometimes a quick tap on the dash right by the gauge would make it start working again. Did any of the astronauts even try banging on the shuttle's dashboard?

I will admit that eventually my balky gauge eventually stopped working entirely, and I can see where such a development when you're in orbit 350 miles over the Earth may prove somewhat disconcerting. But again, I was able to compensate. I knew I could get easily get 300 miles on a tankful of gas, so I would just reset the odometer whenever I filled up. In the case of the space shuttle, I'm sure NASA knows how many orbits it can get on one tankful of premium unleaded rocket fuel. And if the mission happens to encounter strong headwinds while in space, they should be able to easily compensate for that by returning to Earth a little sooner.

Once again, I'm the one who has to think of everything.