Bad Weather Continues To Threaten Launch

The wet remnants of Hurricane Opal threatened Friday’s twice-delayed launch of space shuttle Columbia.

The chances of acceptable weather for the 9:40 a.m. liftoff were put at just 30 percent.

The laboratory-research mission is already eight days late getting started because of the hurricane and a dangerous hydrogen fuel leak.

NASA wants to send Columbia off by the middle of next week so that the next mission - the docking of shuttle Atlantis with the Russian space station Mir - can begin as planned on Nov. 1.