Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Shuttle Status for 04/22/91 (Forwarded)
Message-ID: <1991Apr23.133522.21767@zoo.toronto.edu>
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1991 13:35:22 GMT
References: <1991Apr22.234907.29805@news.arc.nasa.gov> <rose.672376814@beowulf>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <rose.672376814@beowulf> rose@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Dan Rose) writes:
>This may be a naive question, but . . . Why do they have these planned
>countdown holds?  Maybe "countdown" has a more specific meaning to
>NASA than it does to me, but it seems like there's no sense in starting
>a countdown until it's, well, time to count down.

Well, the reason for having pauses in the sequence is to give some slack
in case minor problems develop (which does happen with some frequency).
However, it is basically a NASA quirk that the clock stops during these
planned pauses.  They could just as easily be figured into the official
clock time.
-- 
And the bean-counter replied,           | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"beans are more important".             |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
