Two-and-a-half years after a piece of falling insulating foam led to the disintegration of the shuttle Columbia and the death of all seven astronauts on board, NASA conceded yesterday the problem hasn’t been solved.
The space agency grounded the entire shuttle fleet on Wednesday after photographs taken during Discovery’s liftoff revealed that the foam had again broken loose, despite a $1.4 billion investment to prevent that from happening.
Discovery Commander Eileen Collins expressed surprise during an in-orbit interview. “It wasn’t what we had expected,” she admitted. “I thought we had that licked.
“I don’t think we should fly again unless we do something to prevent this from happening,” she added.
But NASA chief Michael Griffin said he’s putting together a “tiger team” to crack the puzzle – and hopes to be able to make another launch before the end of the year. “We don’t expect this to be a long, drawn-out affair,” Griffin said. “We’ll fix this.”
Griffin said NASA had failed to eliminate the danger entirely, but stressed that Tuesday’s launch was a necessary step in the agency’s recovery from the Columbia disaster.
Griffin said the amount of debris had been greatly cut down, with only 25 areas of minor damage found on the Discovery’s thermal tiles, compared with an average of 150 on the previous 111 successful shuttle missions.
With Post Wire Services