what are "they" preparing us for...?

these MSM news flashes starting to appear...


"As NASA prepares for its final service call to the Hubble Space Telescope, it's also preparing for something never attempted in the history of the shuttle program: a rescue operation so dramatic that Hollywood would be hard-pressed to come up with a more outlandish plot.

If the Hubble repair crew due for liftoff on Monday got into the deepest sort of orbital trouble, yet another shuttle would have to be launched into orbit as little as a week later. NASA hasn’t launched two piloted spacecraft so close together in more than 40 years. But that's just the first act of the drama."



"The rescue shuttle, Endeavour, would have to pull within about two dozen yards of the stranded shuttle Atlantis, and then help Atlantis' crew members make their way across a lifeline to refuge. Then Endeavour, full to capacity, would have to leave Hubble as well as Atlantis behind and return home — but not before Atlantis' controls are set for a self-destruct sequence."

~*~ and ~*~

"Like the doomed Columbia, Atlantis will be following an orbital path that makes reaching the shelter of the space station impossible. The only supplies the crew can use to extend their lives and await rescue are those that they bring along with them.

So for this mission only, the potential urgency of the situation requires the rescue ship to be ready to go within a few days of a launch decision. The last time NASA had two different manned space vehicles in a similar situation was the dual flight of Gemini 7 and Gemini 6 in December 1965."


(ummm, so that blast we saw in space was the Altlantis
self-destructing, but only after a dramatic, heroic
rescue in space? amazin' ain't it?)