ABCNews.com July 4, 2006
Discovery Is Set to Launch
Despite Weather Concerns and Foam Problems, NASA Says Shuttle Will Take Off
July 4, 2006— - NASA engineers say that the Space Shuttle Discovery will launch this afternoon, despite suffering yet another setback when a small piece of foam fell off the external fuel tank.
The foam, 3 inches long and weighing no more than a penny, peeled off a bracket holding a fuel line in place. NASA needed a closer look at the area -- and at the 4-inch crack in the foam where the piece had separated. Engineers rigged together a camera and an 8-foot-long pipe so they could see the damage more clearly. So far, NASA has spent $234 million on the problem.
A few weeks ago, a top engineer and safety officer recommended scrubbing the mission until NASA engineers could fix the foam. He was overruled by NASA administrator Michael Griffin.
"It has only been on the last couple of flights, unfortunately, where NASA has paid a lot of attention to the foam," Griffin told "Good Morning America." "So I can say that [on] over 100 flights and more that we didn't find a piece or two here and there."
Griffin said that the foam came off as the fuel tank expanded when fuel was added and contracted when it was drained after a delay in the launch.
A Third Try
Although the shuttle launch was scotched twice last weekend because of unfavorable weather, NASA engineers said they were confident the shuttle is safe for takeoff.
"The ground ops crew came to the rescue here with a great inspection technique that really allowed us to get a good, close look at this," said NASA associate administrator Bill Gerstenmaier. "The foam itself that's left in place has the strength, has the ability, to do what it was designed to do. There is no need to go repair."
Discovery's crew listened to the debate about the foam loss and raised no questions or concerns about the decision to launch. Chunks of foam also came off the tank during last year's shuttle mission -- the first since the 2003 Columbia disaster.
"They know enough to go ahead and fly without looking closer. I'm not going to try and guess it," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org.
Meteorologists predict a 20 percent chance of unfavorable weather for the scheduled launch time of 2:38 p.m. ET, and it appears that all systems are go. Griffin said that NASA has left "no stone unturned," even though there is international pressure on NASA to help complete the International Space Station.
"We are half done," Griffin said. "We have 400,000 pounds of hardware in orbit. We have another 400,000-plus to go. We need a space station if we are going to go to Mars.
"The purpose of NASA is to explore space, push the frontier, to go where no one has gone before. The space station is our hold in space and we need to finish it."
ABC News' Lisa Stark contributed to this report
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