Space Shuttle Discovery flight rescheduled for Dec 3

If all goes well, Discovery should be ready to launch on Dec. 3 at 2:52 a.m. EST (0752 GMT), NASA officials said in an update. A series of safety reviews is still ahead before the shuttle is completely cleared for flight, they added.

Discovery has been stuck on Earth since Nov. 5, when a potentially dangerous hydrogen gas leak on the shuttle's external tank forced NASA to stand down for repairs. Foul weather and other glitches thwarted several earlier launch attempts that week.

Since then, NASA engineers have replaced a misaligned seal to plug the hydrogen leak and are now working to reinforce metal ribs on the external tank where cracks were discovered while the leak repairs were being performed.

The cracks are on two of 108 metal ribs around the upper middle portion of the tank that provide structural support. There are two cracks on each of the ribs. NASA shuttle technicians are installing double-wide ribs – called doublers – to reinforce the cracked areas.

Another crack, this one in the exterior foam insulation on Discovery's fuel tank, will also be repaired.

While the fuel tank rib repairs are under way, NASA shuttle program managers plan to review their rationale for flying Discovery with the repairs. If during that meeting, slated for Nov. 24, shuttle officials agree that Discovery is ready to fly, the space agency will hold a final review on Nov. 29 to clear the shuttle for liftoff, NASA officials said.

NASA's upcoming STS-133 shuttle mission will be the final flight of shuttle Discovery before it is retired along with the rest of the U.S. orbiter fleet in 2011.

The 11-day mission will send a crew of six astronauts to the International Space Station to deliver a storage room for the orbiting lab, as well as a humanoid robot built designed to help astronauts with work in space. Two spacewalks are planned.

NASA's upcoming window to launch Discovery opens on Nov. 30 and will close around Dec. 6 to avoid heating concerns caused by unfavorable sun angles at the space station after that, agency officials have said. NASA's shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to fly to the station during the next available window, which opens in late February.

NASA is retiring the space shuttle fleet to make way for a new plan aimed at sending astronauts to visit an asteroid by 2025. After Discovery's flight, NASA has only one more mission – Endeavour's – scheduled before the fleet is retired.

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Dead deer found in Clear Lake

by Hayley Kappes / The Daily News
khou.com
Posted on November 18, 2010 at 9:49 AM
Updated today at 11:00 AM

Related:
Galveston County Daily News website
KEMAH, Texas — John Blakeway often notices deer grazing in a field across from the boatyard where he works.

He said he never expected to see one floating in the water near the boat slips.

An employee on Monday told Blakeway, manager of South Texas Yacht Services, 1500 Marina Bay Drive in Kemah, that a boater had tied the body of an 8-point buck to pilings at the boat yard.

Blakeway said he called a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department game warden, who told him to dispose of the carcass in a Dumpster.

Workers at the boat yard had to use a crane to remove the animal from the water. The buck weighed about 170 pounds, said Blakeway, who hunts deer. There were no wounds on the animal.

Blakeway said he didn’t know who tied the deer to the boat slip.

It is breeding season for whitetail deer, and the animals move more frequently this time of year, Debbie Quebe with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department said.

People should call the city or county animal control to remove the body of any dead animal on land or in the water, Quebe said.

This story was brought to you thanks to khou.com’s partnership with The Galveston County Daily News.

What's that smell?

TEXAS CITY, Texas — A smell similar to rotten eggs enveloped Texas City about 5 p.m. Monday afternoon after a leak from a subunit at BP’s Texas City refinery.

Workers were doing maintenance work on a sour water compressor on the refinery’s Power 2 unit when workers noticed a smell after a piece of equipment failed, company spokesman Michael Marr said. The odor, which forced some businesses on Palmer Highway about 13 blocks from the refinery to shutter their doors and close windows, lasted more than an hour.

The smell is believed to come from liquid in the subunit that contained hydrogen sulfide, which is a hazardous chemical that has a strong smell of rotten eggs, Texas City Homeland Security Director Bruce Clawson said. The Texas City Fire Department and BP industrial hygienists conducted ground-level air monitoring and did not find any readings of hazardous chemicals in the air, Clawson said.

Between one and two barrels of sour water — which is waste water that contains hydrocarbons and is pumped to an enclosed sewer system for disposal — spilled, causing the offensive odor, officials said.

There was not a shelter in place order for the city, but Clawson issued a phone and e-mail alert to residents notifying them of the situation.

There was a brief shelter in place order within the refinery for areas downwind of the leak, Marr said. BP set up an incident command center and the leak was contained at about 9 p.m.

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Space Shuttle Discovery flight rescheduled for Nov 30

Repair Analysis Continues at the Launch Pad
Wed, 10 Nov 2010 07:56:10 AM CST

At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, technicians at Launch Pad 39A began disconnecting space shuttle Discovery’s ground umbilical carrier plate last night by unhooking and lowering the hydrogen vent line that attaches to the plate on the external tank. As the disconnection process continues, they will take a careful step-by-step look and assess repair options. Today, crews will begin removing the seven-inch quick disconnect.

Teams also continue analyzing and inspecting the approximately 20-inch long crack in the external tank's foam. Tomorrow, technicians expect to begin using terahertz or backscatter scans to see beneath the foam, which will enable them to look for any other potential issues. Plans are still being worked out to reapply foam to the tank after the inspections are completed.

Shuttle managers continue evaluating the data to determine the best repair methods and next launch opportunity for Discovery’s STS-133 mission to the International Space Station, which currently is no earlier than Nov. 30 at 4:02 a.m. EST.

Today at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, STS-133 Mission Specialists Tim Kopra and Alvin Drew will practice inside the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory for the mission's first spacewalk.

Houston murders may be work of a serial killer

by Michelle Homer / khou.com
khou.com
Posted on November 1, 2010 at 1:38 PM
Updated today at 1:42 PM


HOUSTON – Police are looking into a possible link between the strangulation murders of at least three women since June.
The most recent cases involved homeless women. The body of Carol Flood, 62, was found on Oct. 10 in a stairwell behind the old YMCA building. She was partially nude. On Sept. 30, Retia LaFaye Long, 52, was found dead behind the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart at 1700 San Jacinto.

Now police believe the same killer may have strangled Raquel Mundy last June 17, then dumped her body in a field in the 300 block of St. Charles.
Mundy, 24, was murdered after accepting a ride from a stranger when she was stranded downtown.

She had dropped her mom and two kids off at the Greyhound bus station downtown around 1:30 a.m. Thursday. She then discovered her car had been towed from a McDonald’s parking lot across the street.
Mundy tried to call friends and relatives, but couldn’t find anyone to give her a ride to the tow lot. Witnesses saw her get into a grey car with an unknown man, according to police.

Mundy later sent a text message to her mother saying she thought she was in danger and feared the man was going to hurt her.
Angela Collins was still on the bus to California with her two grandchildren when she got the disturbing message.

She tried frantically to reach Mundy. Collins then called several relatives and asked them to try to find Mundy.
By the time the bus arrived in California, there was still no sign of her daughter.
"Next call we got, they had found the body. It was my baby, Collins said as she choked back tears. "This man took away my baby."
An autopsy revealed Mundy had been strangled.

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Shuttle rescheduled for Wednesday

The Space Shuttle Program Mission Management Team voted unanimously to proceed toward Discovery’s targeted liftoff at 3:52 p.m. Wednesday. Mike Moses, chair of the Prelaunch Mission Management team, said there are no technical issues in work.

"The mission's in great shape," Moses said.

The weather forecast calls for a 70 percent chance of acceptable conditions at launch time. Those odds fall to 40 percent for Thursday. The launch window extends until Sunday. Discovery is headed to the International Space Station for an 11-day mission to deliver the Permanent Multipurpose Module and its host of supplies and equipment to the orbiting outpost.

At the launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, technicians will load super-cold oxygen and hydrogen into Discovery's onboard tanks this morning. The hyroden and oxygen are going into Discovery's power reactant storage and distribution system that supplies the shuttle with electrical power during the mission. The process is often abbreviated to "PRSD load."