NASA's (Almost) Day Of Destiny 

Today was going to be the beginning of the future. For several weeks, I had today's date thumbtacked to my wall.
Well over a year ago, obviously, Sean O'Keefe said that this date--Feb. 18, 2004--would be of overwhelming importance to NASA. To the best of my knowledge, nothing extremely significant is occuring in the agency today.
Today was scheduled to be the launch date for the STS-120 Space Shuttle mission. That mission was to carry Node 2, the last ISS component required for U.S. Core Complete status, the minimum final U.S. contribution to the Station. Future U.S. contributions to the Station would be considered only after Core Complete was achieved, and the decision-making process would be based on NASA's success in reaching that goal.
And, so, Feb. 18 was to be the beginning of the future. By launching Node 2 today, on schedule and much closer to within budget than 2 years earlier, the agency was going to prove that this was a new and better NASA that could be trusted with aggresive goals and projects.
But, of course, Feb. 1, 2003 changed all that. Core Complete is still years away.
Ironically, though, the future began more than a month early. And is probably brighter than it would have been had it started today.

:: :: 10:10 :: David :: [permalink] ::