Order # 9426714

[Gilberto Ambrose]

 

 

 

The prize was offered to the first manned flight to return safely from two trips 62 miles (100 km) high into suborbital space. In August 2003, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board officially concluded that insulating foam flew off the shuttle's external fuel tank during liftoff, striking and cracking a panel on the orbiter's wing. "The first solo nonstop is a grand endeavor," said Fossett. "If successful, I hope to earn a place in aviation history in the legacy of Wiley Post." In 1933, Post rounded the globe after stopping eleven times in just under eight days. Fossett wants to finish -- without stopping -- in under 80 hours. Fossett holds dozens of aviation and nautical records, including the fastest flight of a nonsupersonic airplane -- 742.02 mph (1,193.9 kph).

Readdy admitted he hoped the techniques would be further along, but said that two years ago repairing the shuttle's thermal protection system while in flight was thought impossible. Discovery's crew of seven is to be led by Commander Eileen Collins. For this latest challenge, Fossett and his mission control team at Kansas State University face a tricky triple threat: weather, sleep deprivation and conserving precious fuel. Next Wednesday or Thursday, weather permitting, the 60-year-old retired investor plans to board the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer in Salina, Kansas, and begin his journey toward Europe and the Middle East, over Asia and the Pacific, and back to Kansas.

Discovery and Atlantis will be so-called rescue shuttles for each other should something go wrong. NASA has been readying both shuttles side by side The CAIB made 15 recommendations to NASA on ways to improve the shuttle program. Fossett holds dozens of aviation and nautical records, including the fastest flight of a nonsupersonic airplane -- 742.02 mph (1,193.9 kph). Readdy admitted he hoped the techniques would be further along, but said that two years ago repairing the shuttle's thermal protection system while in flight was thought impossible.

Discovery's crew of seven is to be led by Commander Eileen Collins. "The first solo nonstop is a grand endeavor," said Fossett. "If successful, I hope to earn a place in aviation history in the legacy of Wiley Post." In 1933, Post rounded the globe after stopping eleven times in just under eight days. Fossett wants to finish -- without stopping -- in under 80 hours. Soloing around the globe in a plane is now "the last great aviation record left inside the Earth's atmosphere," Branson said when the mission was announced in 2003. The CAIB made 15 recommendations to NASA on ways to improve the shuttle program.