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Tuesday, September 9, 2003
SCI-TECH
THE BATTALION
ptember 9,20
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THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
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tHE BATTALION
SPACE CENTER, Houston
NASA said Monday that
wfhen shuttle launches resume
sometime next year, the first mis-
1 on will essentially be a test
■gilt, with astronauts inspecting
■eir ship and practicing repair
techniques to guard against
aiother Columbia-type disaster.
The space agency considered
ing the minimum number of
tronauts and keeping the mis
sion as short as possible. But
ASA decided to go with a full
t of six or seven astronauts on a
irmal-length mission of about a
eek and a half to perform some
erdue repair work at the inter-
fliiiional space station.
“If we’re going to go through
1 this risk to get there and do
at, we ought to go ahead and
ake sure that we do some of
ose things that are important to
international space station
;cause if we don’t do those
ings, it raises the risk of the sta
in,” said Bill Parsons, the new
shuttle program manager.
I No firm launch date has been
sei for the next shuttle, Atlantis.
But in all likelihood, it will not
deliver a fresh crew to the space
Sation as originally intended.
I Instead, the focus will be on
Bspecting the shuttle for exterior
^■image, using cameras on both
the shuttle and space station, and
practicing repair techniques.
Other objectives, like deliver-
| ing supplies to the space station,
^■ill take a back seat, said
^Killiam Readdy, a former shuttle
I commander who is now NASA’s
top spaceflight official.
I Readdy said the next flight
may not represent as much of a
shakedown as the first shuttle trip
in 1981, a two-day mission by
Columbia and just two pilots.
But he noted: “This is really
and truly a developmental test
flight getting back to building
and assembling the space sta
tion” and implementing all 15 of
the Columbia accident board’s
recommendations required for
return to flight.
NASA has yet to settle on all
the details of an emergency res
cue plan.
But in a 156-page retum-to-
flight report issued Monday, the
space agency said it is looking at
using the space station as an
emergency shelter for stranded
shuttle astronauts and consider
ing having another spacecraft
ready to blast off on a rescue
mission.
We will be safety-
driven and not
schedule-driven.
99
— William Readdy
NASA spaceflight official
“Our first line of defense is:
Don’t have any debris come off
and strike the shuttle. The second
line is to have inspection tech
niques and repair capabilities so
we can come home safely,”
Parsons said.
The release of NASA’s initial
return-to-flight plan comes two
weeks after the Columbia
Accident Investigation Board
concluded that a stray piece of
insulating foam and a broken
safety culture were responsible
for the shuttle’s destruction on
Feb. 1. All seven astronauts
were killed.
Readdy stressed that the plan
is “a living document” that will
evolve in the coming weeks and
months.
Some NASA officials have
talked about resuming shuttle
flights as early as March, but
most have said privately that next
summer would be a more realis
tic estimate.
“Whether that turns out to be
March or April or May or June or
July, so be it. We will be safety-
driven and not schedule-driven,”
Readdy said.
The biggest challenge, offi
cials said, will be to come up
with a repair for the vulnerable
carbon panels that protect the
leading edges of the shuttle
wings. The leading edge of
Columbia’s left wing suffered a
6- to 10-inch hole from being hit
with the foam.
NASA is looking for outside
help in coming up with a lead
ing-edge patch capable of with
standing the thousands of
degrees of re-entry heat.
Atlantis will be launched in
daylight to ensure good camera
views of the foam insulation on
the external fuel tank and any
debris hitting the spaceship.
Readdy said shuttles will be
restricted to daylight liftoffs for
the foreseeable future.
As for the newly ordered
inspections, the astronauts will
connect an extension boom to the
end of the shuttle’s 50-foot robot
arm and check the underside of
the wings and the ship’s belly for
damage. Cameras and lasers will
be mounted on the end of the
boom; the lasers will measure the
depth of any gashes.
Readdy and other officials
said they do not know yet how
much all the improvements
will cost.
As for the steps necessary to
fix NASA’s broken culture,
those will take longer and
require help from outside
experts, Readdy said.
Teen tanning rates ‘alarming’
By Lindsey Tanner
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
n w,
I CHICAGO — A study found that nearly a third
of white teenage girls in the United States have
used tanning booths at least three times, suggest
ing an alarming number of teens are ignoring the
dangers of skin cancer for the sake of sporting a
good tan.
| Twenty-eight percent of teenage girls and 7
percent of boys reported using tanning booths
three or more times, the nationally representative
study found. Forty-seven percent of girls aged 18
and 19 reported use that frequent.
I “Teenagers may think they look good now, but
the sad part is that by the time they reach 60, their
skin will look like a leather bag and they’ll be pay
ing a dermatologist to try to reverse the damage,”
said Dr. Ted Daly, director of pediatric dermatol
ogy at Nassau University Medical Center in New
ffork, who was not involved in the study.
The study and an accompanying editorial
)pear in the September issue of Archives of
5 ediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, published
londay.
j The Case Western Reserve University
researchers analyzed data from 6,903 white teens
who answered questions in a separate national
survey on adolescent health in 1996.
Indoor tanning was most popular in the
Midwest, where sunny weather is limited, and the
South, where heat and humidity might make out
door tanning uncomfortable.
The study’s lead author, Case Western
researcher Catherine Demko, said there’s evi
dence that indoor tanning might contribute to the
risk for malignant melanoma, the most serious
kind of skin cancer.
Indoor tanners also were more likely to smoke,
drink or use marijuana than paler adolescents, the
researchers said.
“Tan skin beats a healthy vampire glow every
time,” said Dr. Robert Dellavalle, a Denver der
matologist. He wrote an accompanying editorial
proposing a $20 tax per tanning session for kids
under 18, which he said might help curb demand
and increase funds for more skin cancer aware
ness campaigns.
“Since youth represents an especially critical
period during which UV radiation increases skin
cancer risk, altering tanning behavior of minors is
a prime target of skin cancer prevention efforts,”
Dellavalle said.
Many teens are attracted to tanning booths
because salons promote them as being safer than
natural sunlight, which isn’t true, Daly said.
“An occasional visit to the tanning booth may
not be so bad, but teens should not go on a week
ly basis or over the long-term,” he said.
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