–

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS: It looks like the Shuttle fleet is going to be grounded until the fall, over this flowliner cracks issue. The bad news is, well, the fleet is grounded for a few months, meaning no flights at all at a time when the launch rate was already being minimized to (supposedly) save costs, etc.

The good news is twofold. First, the problem does not appear to be too difficult or expensive to repair in a reasonable amount of time, which means that there will not be a protracted, post-Challenger style stand-down. This would have made it somewhat difficult to resupply the station and rotate crews on schedule, not to mention giving the station a periodic reboost to maintain proper altitude. Second, it is one more data point on the record, showing why a single launch system (and single launch services provider) is not a good idea — were there alternatives to Shuttle, the fleet grounding would have much less impact on ISS and other schedules, and the engineers involved could take more time in analyzing and fixing the problem instead of working under the gun.