Aalice.159 net.columbia utzoo!decvax!duke!mhtsa!research!alice!sjb Fri Nov 13 18:35:01 1981 STS-2 shortened Although the flight of the shuttle was smooth today, and all the experiments went well, NASA ordered the ship home tomorrow. It will land at 1422 EST at Rogers Dry Lake, right after a cloud cover is expected to break up. With one cell gone, Columbia could have gone on, but NASA officials decided not to take a chance with the others -- two gone would mean a landing as soon as possible (abort); three would mean the loss of the craft -- it would have no electricity or internal systems (computers, etc.) and would eventually fall to Earth and burn up after its orbit decayed. However, most of the experiments were at least partially completed, and the Canadarm testing was a complete success, with color pictures being sent down to Earth. The SRB parachutes and the tips, or frustrums, of the rockets were retrieved but high seas continued the delay of recovery of the main boosters. Strings of lights were put around them for night and another try was expected today. ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.