Waht does anyone make of this excerpt from a Florida Today article
dated 18 August ( entitled No More Shuttle Flights in 2005):

"Bill Gerstenmaier, the newly-appointed head of space operations at
NASA, says the proposed changes have the side benefit of providing
smoother turn-arounds between station construction missions further
down the road. Under earlier plans, Atlantis would have flown
back-to-back flights on a super-tight schedule.

The new shuttle plan, which is yet to be formally approved by shuttle
management, puts Atlantis in line to carry an especially heavy piece of
the space station. It also sets a sequence of Discovery, Atlantis,
Discovery rather than one in which vehicles might have had to fly
back-to-back, a sequence that could have led to delays.

"By being able to do this vehicle switch, that is going to make a
more efficient schedule; that makes the impact not a very big
impact," Gerstenmaier said."


Where does Endeavour play into this? Is Endeavour undergoing the same
upgrade and refit that Columbia did?

Gene DiGennaro
Baltimore, Md.