Posted on 08/16/2007 6:51:13 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA decided Thursday that no repairs are needed for a deep gouge in Endeavour's belly and the space shuttle is safe to fly home. Mission Control notified the seven shuttle astronauts of the decision right before they went to sleep, putting an end to a week of engineering analyses and anxious uncertainty — both in orbit and on Earth.
"Please pass along our thanks for all the hard work," radioed Endeavour's commander, Scott Kelly.
Mission Control replied, "It's great we finally have a decision and we can press forward."
The astronauts had spent much of the day running through the never-before-attempted repair methods, just in case they were ordered up.
After meeting for five hours, mission managers opted Thursday night against any risky spacewalk repairs, after receiving the results of one final thermal test. The massive amount of data indicated Endeavour would suffer no serious structural damage during next week's re-entry.
Their worry was not that Endeavour might be destroyed and its seven astronauts killed in a replay of the Columbia disaster — the gouge is too small to be catastrophic. They were concerned that the heat of re-entry could weaken the shuttle's aluminum frame at the damaged spot and result in lengthy postflight repairs.
Endeavour's bottom thermal shielding was pierced by a piece of debris that broke off the external fuel tank shortly after liftoff last week. The debris, either foam insulation, ice or a combination of both, weighed just one-third of an ounce but packed enough punch to carve out a 3 1/2-inch-long, 2-inch-wide gouge and dig all the way through the thermal tiles. Left completely exposed was a narrow 1-inch strip of the overlying felt fabric, the last barrier before the shuttle's aluminum structure.
The only way to fix the gouge would have been to send a pair of spacewalking astronauts out with black paint and caulk-like goo, and maneuver them beneath the shuttle on the end of a 100-foot robotic arm and extension boom, with few if any close-up camera views of the work.
The spacewalk would have had added risk, so much so that mission managers did not want to attempt it unless absolutely necessary. Wednesday's spacewalk, cut short by an astronaut's ripped glove, showed how hazardous even a relatively routine spacewalk can be.
Earlier, astronaut Alvin Drew said from Endeavour that he was comfortable with the prospect of flying back to Earth in a gouged ship. Engineers seem confident, he said, "and I trust their confidence that we can get home safely even with the divot that we have in the belly."
"Spaceflight is risky," noted astronaut Barbara Morgan, the backup teacher for Challenger's doomed mission, "but we have all confidence that we're going to be able to do the right thing."
But a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who served on the Columbia investigation board four years ago, Stanford University's Douglas Osheroff, questioned NASA's hesitancy to perform the repairs since they "can only increase their chances of making it down."
I don't see why NASA is going to invent a fix and not use it," Osheroff said. He added: "This attitude of, 'It looks like it's OK, let's not do anything about it,' it seems like the Columbia NASA."
In a poignant reminder of NASA's other shuttle accident, the 1986 Challenger launch explosion, Morgan — Christa McAuliffe's backup — answered questions from youngsters gathered at the Challenger Center for Space Science Education in Alexandria, Va.
The moderator was June Scobee Rodgers, the widow of Challenger's commander and the founding chairman of the Challenger center's board. "Barb, we have been standing by waiting for your signal from space for 21 years," she said.
One girl asked if Morgan had a special teacher or mentor when she was young.
"Some of my mentors that have meant more than anything to me are seven very special people who I believe are mentors to you, too, and that was the Challenger crew," Morgan replied.
Morgan closed the teaching session by holding up an emblem of the Challenger crew's mission patch.
___
Associated Press writers Liz Austin Peterson in Houston and Seth Borenstein in Washington contributed to this report.
Well, NASA wants to retire the shuttle anyway. If I were up there, I think I’d want a second opinion.
How secure would you feel knowing that management was "cautiously optomistic" that you would survive your work day?
If I were up there and heard that phrase, I'd put my puckered lips between my knees, so's to be in the proper position when needed.
Maybe they could leave half the astronauts on the station and just have the pilots bring it back.
that way the overall risk would be cut in half.
where is the bottle when you need it the most...hope those guys up there were able to stash one for a few shots before the road home!
i’m sure there’s some strong stuff stashed on the station.
assuming the tests reflected all conditions of the damage on the shuttle...a dangerous assumption
I too fear the old NASA management ways. Did they spend enough time addressing the tile issue or do they have reverse go fever to get the shuttle home?
Now now, Norm.
You're breaking the hearts of our resident doom-n-gloomers and know-it-alls.
The only reason to make the spacewalk repair is to reduce the amount of repair necessary after the Shuttle lands. It was decided the spacewalk wasn’t worth the time saving later.
lol, I grew up as Nasa grew up.. from afar I followed program after program.
Not to defend Nasa, but these are not fly-by night folks at Nasa, well, they do fly at night, but..,
They are definitely underfunded and in need of some new hardware to play with.
Personally I would like to have put some goop in the gap, after viewing some better resolution images, it’s not a mission killer. jmo.
I grew up in (and now live outside of) Huntsville. My Dad worked in the Space program...
They need to get rid of the diversity and feel-good crowd.
Bring back the gray gun-metal desks with real men in buzz-cuts and ties, puffing on their cigarettes.
I think it is over-confidence in procedures.
Geez, I’d have them do the repair just for the psychological benefit to the crew and the value of doing a ‘dry run’ of the process, not to mention the CYA factor.
Amid all the "I know more than you" claims and pontifications of this thread - this is the most cogent comment made so far.
As it stands, and I spent ten years on the shuttle in one capacity or another, it's like the "we're not Hurtz" rental car company assuring a customer that they can make it from Boston to San Diego on three good tires and the little spare dough-nut - doing it to save the $50.00 a new tire would cost them at fleet discount and because the maintenance shop was crowded when the issue came up.
100% of the Shuttles that have crashed had women on board. This one does, too. Let’s get ready for another crispy re-entry over the southern US.
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