Panel Sees Shuttle Flights Resuming Soon

[Khephra]

NASA should be able to meet all requirements for resuming space shuttle flights next spring, but some solutions, like repairing damage to heat shields, will be open to interpretation, members of an oversight panel said Thursday.

The return-to-flight task force headed by the former astronauts Thomas P. Stafford and Richard O. Covey said after a meeting at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., that it had approved the space agency's compliance plans for 8 of 15 mandatory preflight recommendations.

At a news conference after the meeting, Mr. Covey said the 26-member committee did not see any major roadblocks stopping the National Aeronautics and Space Administration from going ahead with plans to start flying shuttles again in May or June.

The three remaining shuttles have been grounded since the shuttle Columbia was destroyed upon re-entry from space on Feb. 1, 2003, killing its seven-member crew. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board determined that a piece of debris from the main fuel tank had damaged the shuttle's wing on takeoff, compromising the craft's thermal protection system.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/17/science/17shuttle.html?oref=login

[noamnety]

1. Another way to rid the budget of money

This is much more efficient than sending jobs overseas, just shoot our budget into outer space.