Free Republic

SPACE CENTER, Houston - Employing the kind of NASA ingenuity seen during Apollo 13, an astronaut prepped for an emergency repair job on Discovery's exterior Wednesday with forceps, scissors and a hacksaw fashioned out of a blade and a little duct tape. Stephen Robinson's mission was to remove two short pieces of filler material that were sticking out of the shuttle's belly. NASA feared the material could lead to a repeat of the 2003 Columbia tragedy during Discovery's re-entry next week. Astronauts have never ventured beneath an orbiting shuttle before, and have never attempted repairs to the fragile thermal skin...