I want NASA to bring back the Saturn 5's!!! That would rock seeing one of them being launched!!!
The shuttle should be scrapped, but unfortunatly its the only thing big enough at the moment to take up the peices left to build the rest of the ISS. With the amount of money they have spent on Return to Flight they could of invested in a totally new system, which has a less likelyhood of failing compared to a 20-30yr old brick on wings!
As for the 20min/2hr left on the count down clock.. it is both!.. just to confuse everyone.... it was 20minutes left on the count down clock, however they pause the count down clock between 20mins to 1 min for various periods to do their checks, which in this case they were saying to equate to around 2 hrs of realtime.
For a typical countdown with holds see
http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight/l...ntdown101.html
and taken from
http://science.msfc.nasa.gov/Realtim...me-launch.html
"Countdown Clock &
Time to Liftoff
Countdown Clock
10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... Liftoff
The countdown clock would be simple to explain except for the "holds". The countdown clock is a method of representing what pre-launch events or milestones have been accomplished. If an event is late, the clock will hold until that event occurs. Also, the countdown will contain several "built-in" holds. Sometime built-in holds are included to allow synchronization with other countdown clocks (for example, a payload countdown). Other built-in holds allow people to take a break. The built-in holds vary significantly from day-launch missions to night-launch missions.
The shuttle countdown clock typically starts counting at about 43 hours. "
