NASA Takes Risk With Shuttle Launch ("We are playing the odds.") [View All]

WP/AP: NASA Takes Risk With Shuttle Launch
By MIKE SCHNEIDER
The Associated Press
Friday, June 30, 2006


In this photo released by NASA, STS-121 Mission Specialists Lisa Nowak, left, and British born, U.S. astronaut Piers Sellers inspect cables in the mid-body of space shuttle Discovery on Launch Pad 39-B Thursday June 29, 2006, at Cape Canaveral, Fla. The seven member crew is making final preparations for the launch on Saturday July 1 to the International Space Station. During the 12-day mission, the crew will test new equipment and procedures to improve shuttle safety, as well as deliver supplies and make repairs to the station. (AP Photo/NASA, Kim Shiflett)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA chief Michael Griffin is taking a calculated gamble by going ahead with the launch of Discovery, overruling two top managers who fear foam flying off the fuel tank might harm the space shuttle.

The world will soon know if his gamble pays off.

Discovery was set to blast off from Kennedy Space Center at 3:49 p.m. EDT Saturday, the first launch of a space shuttle in almost a year and only the second since the Columbia disaster in 2003....

***

Faced with a 2010 deadline to finish building the international space station and end the shuttle program, Griffin wants to get the shuttles flying again and believes a delay now would create schedule pressure toward the end of the decade....

***

"We are playing the odds," Griffin said Friday. "What you pay us for as taxpayers is to understand those odds in great detail ... It's called risk management."...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/30/AR2006063000123.html