鈥淚 CANNOT possibly accept every recommendation I鈥檓 given by every member of my staff, especially since they don鈥檛 agree,鈥� said NASA administrator Mike Griffin on Saturday.
No one would deny him this privilege, of course, except in this case he was referring to the space shuttle Discovery: Griffin declared it fit for launch on 1 July, despite reservations from two top officials.
At a two-day flight readiness review, officials from NASA鈥檚 office of the chief engineer and office of safety and mission assurance expressed worries about manually applied foam called ice/frost ramps on the outside of the external fuel tank. These ramps are designed to prevent water vapour from condensing and forming ice on the metallic brackets outside the tank.
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The representatives said the ramps were 鈥渘o-go鈥� for launch, because of worries that pieces of this foam might fall at lift-off and hit the orbiter. In contrast, Griffin and many others at the meeting thought that the shuttle was ready for launch. 鈥淲e did not have unanimity,鈥� says Griffin.
NASA engineers are working to redesign the ice/frost ramps, but new ramps will not be ready for another three or four shuttle flights. In any case, the agency wants to make only one major design change to the tank each flight 鈥� and it has already removed the tank鈥檚 PAL ramp, which was the source of falling foam during Discovery鈥檚 last flight, in 2005.
