NASA Acknowledges That Even Little Pieces of Foam Could Doom Space Shuttle on Next Flight

http://abcnews.go.com/US/print?id=644388

NASA Acknowledges That Even Little Pieces of Foam Could Doom Space
Shuttle on Next Flight

By MARCIA DUNN
The Associated Press

Apr. 5, 2005 - After a two-year struggle to keep big chunks of foam
from coming off the shuttle fuel tank during launch, NASA acknowledged
Tuesday even marshmallow-size pieces could doom the spacecraft under
the worst circumstances.

Shuttle systems engineering manager John Muratore said it is a risk
NASA and the nation must accept for flights to resume anytime soon.

It would take years and a total redesign of the fuel tank to
completely eliminate foam loss and to ensure the 2003 Columbia tragedy
would never be repeated, Muratore and other officials said.

NASA expects pieces of insulating foam no bigger than one or two
marshmallows to break off the fuel tank when Discovery blasts off next
month. Depending on where and when the pieces hit, they could cause
catastrophic damage during re-entry, Muratore said.

By contrast, the size of the foam that shattered Columbia's left wing
was the size of a carryon suitcase.

Muratore told reporters he was "trying to be scrupulously honest with
you about what the potential is but that doesn't say that's what we
expect to happen." He likened the situation to trying to predict the
chances of being in a fatal car accident while driving to the airport.

"If we have that worst day, and the tire is worn and you have a flat
tire in the wrong place in traffic, next to a truck going 90 mph,
could you get killed? Yes, you could. Is that a reasonable set of
assumptions to plan your trip on? Probably not."

Muratore said assessing the danger from foam and other launch debris
is an extremely complicated engineering problem made even more
uncertain by the fact that computer models show little pieces of foam
could cause catastrophic damage. NASA's flight experience over the
decades has proven otherwise.

What NASA has to do to get smarter, Muratore said, is to stop relying
on computer models and start flying the space shuttle again.

Discovery is scheduled to blast off in mid-May on the first shuttle
flight since the Columbia disaster on Feb. 1, 2003. NASA plans to move
the spacecraft to the launch pad Wednesday.

NASA will fly five types of repair kits aboard Discovery for the
astronauts to test in space, but the rudimentary patches will
accommodate holes no bigger than 4 inches. The gash that brought down
Columbia was an estimated 6 inches to 10 inches in size.

Steve Poulos Jr., a shuttle project manager, said a repair kit to fix
that big of a hole should be available in two years.