CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A countdown suspended for five days by a failed engine computer resumed without a hitch today and a federal appeals court removed a legal obstacle to Tuesday morning's launch of space shuttle Atlantis.
Hours after the countdown started up, an appeals court in Washington dismissed environmentalists' request to stop the launch because of the nuclear-powered Galileo spaceship that will be aboard. The anti-nuclear activists, who had appealed a lower court's rejection of their request, fear that a Challenger-style accident could poison the atmosphere with plutonium from Galileo's power pack.
