DAMAGE EYED AS SHUTTLE HEADS TOWARD SPACE STATION

SPACE SHUTTLE ENDEAVOUR ROCKETED
TOWARD THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION

CAPE CANAVERAL – (Associated Press) Space shuttle Endeavour rocketed toward the international space station Thursday as engineers on Earth pored over launch pictures that showed debris breaking off the fuel tank and striking the craft.Mission Control told the astronauts late Wednesday that the damage looked less extensive at first glance than what occurred on the last shuttle flight, but it will take days to sort through available data to reach a conclusion.The astronauts planned a Thursday afternoon inspection of their ship's thermal shielding, using a 100-foot laser-tipped boom. The procedure has been standard since shuttle flights resumed after the Columbia accident.

Endeavour's liftoff early Wednesday evening was the sixth try and came more than a month late. It occurred on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the launch of man's first moon landing mission. "Persistence pays off," launch director Pete Nickolenko told the astronauts, who are carrying up a veranda for Japan's enormous space station lab. The shuttle had been grounded by hydrogen gas leaks last month and, since the weekend, thunderstorms.

Eight or nine pieces of foam insulation came off the external fuel tank during liftoff, and Endeavour was hit at least two or three times, said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's space operations chief. Some scuff marks were spotted, but that probably is coating loss and considered minor, he said. The impacts that occurred not quite two minutes into the flight were around the edge of the shuttle where the right wing joins the fuselage.Any additional damage should be evident Friday, when the space station residents use zoom lenses to photograph the entire shuttle as it performs a backflip right before docking. Columbia was destroyed during re-entry in 2003 because of a hole in its wing, left there by flyaway foam at liftoff.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

Space travel by mechanical means is not the accepted process for elevation to other planets. Perhaps with a great deal of time, effort, and money a few men may be able to reach other planets by material means--spaceships, space suits, etc.--but this is a very cumbersome and impractical method. In any case, it is not possible to go beyond the material universe by mechanical means. The generally accepted method for transferral to higher planets is the practice of the meditational yoga system or jnana system.

Srila A.C. BV Swami Prabhupada
"Beyond Birth and Death - Elevation at Death"

There are many such statements in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam from which we can understand that there were facilities to travel from one planet to another, especially in the higher planetary system, and who can say that they are not still traveling? The speed of our airplanes and space vehicles is very limited, but, as we have already studied, Kardama Muni traveled in outer space in an airplane which was like a city, and he journeyed to see all the different heavenly planets. That was not an ordinary airplane, nor was it ordinary space travel. Because Kardama Muni was such a powerful mystic yogī, his opulence was envied by the denizens of heaven.

Srila A.C. BV Swami Prabhupada:
"The Srimad Bhagavatam - Purport in Canto 1 - Chapter 10 - Verse 6"