NASA official opposes launch, but says crew not in danger

June 21, 2006|Seth Borenstein, Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- NASA's top safety official objected to the agency's decision to press ahead with the launch of the shuttle Discovery next month without fixing a potentially catastrophic foam-shedding problem, but said he won't appeal -- and won't resign in protest -- because he does not believe the astronauts' lives are in danger.

``It's a done deal," Bryan O'Connor, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's chief safety officer, said in an interview Monday night.

O'Connor, a former shuttle commander, said he was uncomfortable with going ahead with the July 1 launch but accepted the decision because NASA has plans in place in case something goes wrong. If foam punches too big a hole in the shuttle's heat-protection system , the crew is to take refuge in the international space station and wait for a rescue mission.

Ten years ago, O'Connor quit his job as chief of the space shuttle program over a reorganization that he said would threaten crew safety. But he said the latest disagreement was not as worrisome: ``I wasn't anywhere close to that."

O'Connor, along with Christopher Scolese, chief engineer, voted against a launch during the flight-readiness meeting held over the weekend at Kennedy Space Center. O'Connor said he told Griffin he would have used his one last-ditch appeal had he thought the crew's lives were in danger.

``It's a real close call," O'Connor said, adding that his own office was split, with some safety officials contending that it wasn't as big a problem as he thought.

In 2003, a chunk of insulating foam broke off Columbia's external fuel tank at liftoff and punched a hole in the shuttle's heat-protecting skin, leading to the breakup of the spacecraft during its return to earth and the deaths of all seven astronauts.

Despite extensive modifications to the fuel tank over the 2 1/2 years that followed, large pieces of foam broke off again when Discovery lifted off last summer on the first flight since the disaster. More modifications followed, but NASA decided to move ahead without removing foam from some particularly troublesome spots .