By all accounts, NASA’s long-awaited return to flight has not gone as smoothly as hoped. Shortly after Tuesday’s launch of the space shuttle Discovery–the first since the Columbia shuttle’s re-entry disaster in February of 2003–large chunks of insulation foam from the external fuel tank broke off and hit the wing. Discovery appears to have emerged from the event without significant damage, but the same problem was responsible for the Columbia accident. The incident comes as a blow to the agency, which has invested nearly a billion dollars and two and a half years of work to make the shuttles safer following the failure of Columbia. In response, NASA has again grounded the shuttle fleet until engineers figure out how to avoid a repeat of the foam shedding. Meanwhile, Discovery has docked successfully with the International Space Station, to which the crew is delivering some 15 tons of supplies.
Exactly what impact the debris issue will have on the future of the shuttle program remains to be seen. In hopes that Scientific American’s past coverage relating to this topic will give readers some context for this developing story, we have compiled a list of stories below.
Free preview. Full coverage available from Scientific American Digital 07/04/2005 Feeling the Pinch 06/27/2005 Lost in Space 12/27/2004 A Bad Fix for Hubble? 10/01/2004 Readying for a Relaunch 04/05/2004 Fly Me to the Moon 04/01/2004 SA Perspectives: Breaking Out of Orbit 08/01/2003 SA Perspectives: Houston, You Have a Problem 04/01/2003 Rethinking the Shuttle 02/07/2003 The Cold Odds against Columbia 02/04/2003 Space Shuttle Investigation Continues 05/27/2002 Lost in Space 04/30/2002 Has the Space Age Stalled?
Exactly what impact the debris issue will have on the future of the shuttle program remains to be seen. In hopes that Scientific American’s past coverage relating to this topic will give readers some context for this developing story, we have compiled a list of stories below.
07/04/2005 Feeling the Pinch
