Tanking a go

NASA managers just gave the go-ahead to fuel the shuttle Atlantis for launch today.

Over the next six hours, launch crews will pump about a half million gallons of supercold liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen into the shuttle's external tank.

The countdown has picked back up as well, and is ticking down from T minus 6 hours.

NASA says fueling could get started slightly late, around 2:30 a.m., but that's not a problem for the planned 11:41 a.m. liftoff.

Weather remains the same as noted last night: a 70 percent chance of acceptable conditions at launch time. No other show-stopping technical issues were raised during the MMT meeting, according to NASA officials in attendance.