‘Luck or Whatever’ Saved Discovery From Fatal Hit By Debris

Jul. 28–NASA on Wednesday grounded all future space shuttle flights after discovering that a suitcase-sized piece of foam — the same sort of debris that doomed the shuttle Columbia and its crew 2 1/2 years ago — had narrowly missed striking Discovery during Tuesday’s launch.

Space agency officials said Discovery did not appear to have been damaged, but they acknowledged that the near miss — and the expectation of Discovery’s safe return — was due more to “luck or whatever” than to NASA engineering.

“You have to admit when you’re wrong,” shuttle program manager Bill Parsons said bluntly. “We were wrong.”

Parsons said that once the Discovery was safely back on Earth, no shuttles would fly again until the problem was solved. “Obviously we have to go fix this,” he said. “Until we’re ready, we won’t go fly again.”

The shuttle Atlantis had been scheduled for launch in September, but Parsons said it would likely be months, at the least, before NASA would be ready to fly the shuttles again.

The uncertain timeline muddies the future of NASA’s aging fleet of three shuttles, which were due to be retired by 2010, and raises new concerns about the fate of the international space station.

Since the Columbia disaster, the half-finished, $40 billion station has been staffed by a skeleton crew of two and supported by a thin logistical line that depends on occasional visits by Russian supply ships.

Only the shuttle orbiters are big enough to deliver the heavy components needed to complete the station’s assembly.

The decision to ground the program again, even before Discovery’s return, might also leave NASA on the horns of a life-and-death dilemma.

If NASA discovers damage to Discovery that can’t be repaired, the seven shuttle astronauts would have to take refuge and wait for another shuttle to be launched to rescue them — a strategy that would be precluded by NASA’s current no-fly decision.

Engineers at NASA’s Houston Space Center say that despite some minor damage to its heat shield tiles — including a damaged tile in the vicinity of its nose gear door — Discovery itself does not appear to have suffered serious damage during launch.

But when it docks with the space station shortly after 7 a.m. today, it will undergo a careful inspection to make sure that it can return safely to Earth. NASA is also poring over laser video surveys of the shuttle’s nose and wings that the astronauts made on Wednesday.

“We are paying very serious attention to this,” said NASA deputy shuttle program manager Wayne Hale. “We are committed to making sure we come back safely.”

Analysis of video images taken Tuesday by a camera aboard the shuttle’s external fuel tank showed a T-shaped piece of insulating foam, roughly 2 feet by 1 foot, peeling away from the tank and hurtling past the shuttle’s right wing about two minutes after liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

The foam broke away from a 70-foot ridge on the tank that runs parallel to its liquid oxygen line and protects cables and other lines from the buffeting forces of ascent. In modifying the tank after the Columbia accident, NASA had considered eliminating the ridge, but concluded that it had not been a source of problems.

Officials acknowledged Wednesday that if the foam had peeled off earlier in the shuttle’s ascent, when atmospheric forces were greater, it might have inflicted the same kind of damage that doomed Columbia.

Later images, taken nine minutes into the flight, showed a T-shaped gap in the foam insulation as the tank separated from the orbiter and plunged toward the Indian Ocean.

A similar-sized piece of foam dislodged from the Columbia’s fuel tank about one minute after liftoff and smashed a gaping hole in the thermal protection covering on the shuttle’s left wing, leading to its destruction during its fiery re-entry on Feb. 1, 2003.

NASA was unaware of the damage to Columbia until after the loss of the shuttle and its seven-member crew.

Since then, it has spent nearly $2 billion to prevent a repeat of that tragedy — including $205 million for a redesign of the 15-story fuel tank, which NASA officials have called “the safest, most reliable tank ever built.”

“Obviously, we have some more work to do,” Parsons said.

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