<p>The Space Shuttle Discovery goes up in a half hour or so.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Wolf Blitzer reports: Recently, the space station’s toilet pump broke, and the 2 replacement pumps on hand failed.</p>
<p>So they flew over a pump with a different manufacture number on it from Russia to Orlando, just in time to get it onboard the shuttle.</p>
<p>Right now, the astronauts up there can use the facilities but have to wash them out after several uses. Not a health hazard, but just inconvenient for the scientists. They’ll be glad when the replacement pump arrives.</p>
<p>And soon, the $19 million dollar toilet will be sent there to avoid the problem. It will be the second toilet for a half dozen working astronauts.</p>
<p>It was a beautiful liftoff. I hold my breath when they say “throttle up” … I find space travel amazing and worth EVERY penny. Go NASA and have a successful encounter with the international space station.</p>
<p>My dad (retired engineer who worked on Saturn/Mercury back in the day) got to see a shuttle launch last year. It was on his ‘list’ of things to see in his lifetime. I got a rush watching the engineers when the latest Mars landing last week. I’m a geek at heart.</p>
<p>sueinphilly: My dad worked at NASA in the 60s and 70s and always brought home (or now emails) how advances made in the space program benefit other areas of science, medicine, etc. I remember standing barefoot in my pajamas in my backyard in a Houston suburb in 1969 looking at the moon and feeling the awe that we were there.</p>
<p>So paying3 – One toilet: $19 million. Advances to science: priceless.</p>
<p>(Jaded daughter comment: I know, it coulda-shoulda-woulda been done cheeper. But part of progress is working through the details. I hope lessons learned are applied in the peripheral issues.)</p>
<p>their entire budget request for FY09 is 17.3 billion (that includes more than just the shuttle program). that is less than 1 month of the Iraq war (based on a 700,000,000 per day burn rate for the war).</p>
<p>Me too, SoCal! Dad at Nasa…Houston suburb…1969. How weird is that? Maybe your dad and Sue’s dad and mine knew each other. You and I may have been at some of the same NASA picnics back in the day. :-)</p>
<p>My H works at NASA now, so I guess I’m kind of second generation.</p>
<p>I work at NASA in Huntsville, AL. I very much miss seeing the Space Shuttle launches in person. It’s emotional and inspirational for me. With luck, I’ll be down in FL for a rocket launch next week – can’t wait!</p>
<p>Laura1013–not to hijack the thread, but what type of work do you do at Huntsville? Son will be at Cape Canaveral in a week for a NASA related competition for college kids–very pumped!</p>
<p>It is amazing to me that there are people on the Space Station–I think we forget they are there in our day to day lives. The toilet issue reminded me how the smallest thing that we take for granted has such a huge impact on them. I almost cannot fathom the fact that we have people in a space station living and working–but then, I am just not that much of a science/space person. How exciting/fascinating it truly is!</p>
<p>I study the X-ray and gamma-ray emissions from extremely energetic explosions called gamma-ray bursts. I very much hope to also be at Cape Canaveral in a week for the launch of the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST). I hope your son enjoys it!</p>
<p>I think most people take what astronauts do for granted. Can you name a single astronaut in space right now? Chances are, you can’t, and neither can most people. It’s easy to forget what amazing feats are accomplished every day in the space program both in space and on the ground.</p>