Published by marco on
The shuttle program is 25 years old now and, ever since the 2003 crash of the Columbia, which was caused by pieces falling off, has had a much more touch-and-go feel to it—which is certainly attractive to NASCAR fans nationwide. As noted in the article, Shuttle fears over foam lost in blast-off (Telegraph.co.uk), the liftoff was not error-free, but the problems were well within expectations:
“‘This isn’t too abnormal,‘ said Bill Gerstenmaier, the associate administrator for spaceflight. ‘We fully expected to lose some foam.’ … Engineers maintained that the flyaway debris was expected to be small … The flight was delayed twice because of bad weather and … last-minute jitters over a chunk of insulation foam that fell from the fuel tank in the build-up to take-off, leaving a 4 in scar at the top of the tank.”
It just goes to show that there’s nothing you can’t accomplish if you don’t lower your expectations.