Space shuttle Atlantis will trundle its way to Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39A next Tuesday, in preparation for its much-delayed STS-125 mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. The vehicle, complete with external fuel tank and twin solid rocket boosters, will travel atop a crawler-transporter for the 3.4 mile journey from …

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Thursday 26th March 2009 14:13 GMT Tom Cooke

Go Atlantis! Go Hubble!

Did anyone catch Third Rock from the Sun on cable yesterday? The 'aliens' were remarking on the way humans get attached, emotionally invested into inanimate objects. Think the posts around Spirit, Opportunity, even Voyager illustrate this (hell, Star Trek made a film about it!); will be a sad day when Hubble bows out - hope it will be in a blaze of glory re-entering the atmosphere.

Particularly moved (how sad am I) by the Twitter postings 'from' Kepler, 1.7 million km out, it's a lonely place to be.

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Thursday 26th March 2009 14:13 GMT Anonymous Coward

Standby...

Will there be a second shuttle on the pad ready for a rescue mission should there be a problem??

or has that problem gone away now???

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Thursday 26th March 2009 14:13 GMT Ross Fleming

A great Endeavour

When does Endeavour roll out to 39B? Seeing two shuttles side by side is going to have me haunted by memories of Armageddon - noone wants that.

Is it still even Endeavour?

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Thursday 26th March 2009 14:13 GMT Johnny G

Didn't know it was travelling across London

"the 3.4 mile journey from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the pad will take around six hours, NASA estimates"

I hope they remember to pay the congestion charge...

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Thursday 26th March 2009 14:13 GMT Andy Barber

So no re[lacement...

...of the ancient 80486 computers then?

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Thursday 26th March 2009 20:21 GMT druck

A fitting tribute to the shuttle and Hubble

The shuttle might have proved an expensive and not entirely reliable way in to space, but this is the sort of job it excels at, and this mission is a fitting tribute to the closing stages of both it and the telescope's life. Without the shuttles ability to service it, Hubble would have been a huge flop rather than providing some of mankind's best views of the universe. Well done to NASA for allowing this last servicing mission to go ahead, and best of luck to the crew in their task.

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Thursday 26th March 2009 20:21 GMT Code Monkey

No piss recycler

It was only after getting to the end without reading anything about a piss recycler that I realised it was Hubble rather than the ISS.

A golden watercooler for Hubble say I!

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Friday 27th March 2009 15:25 GMT Bod

Re: Standby...

Discovery is still up there, due back tomorrow so I guess they'll be too busy dealing with that one to be getting Endeavour ready (which itself is probably being prepared for it's ISS mission in June).

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