They had better have gotten this one right. The American public will not support NASA after another high-profile disaster, not after the sort of deliberations known to have taken place over this launch.

The space shuttle Discovery will launch on schedule next Tuesday even though questions remain about small defects on heat shield panels along its wings, NASA managers said Tuesday.

After an all-day meeting in which engineers debated technical issues that could affect the mission, managers decided to keep the shuttleÂ’s Oct. 23 launching date for a mission that will take a key component to the International Space Station.

N. Wayne Hale Jr., director of the space shuttle program, said there were still questions about the degrading of a coating on 3 of 44 panels on the leading edges of the DiscoveryÂ’s wings. While not fully understood, Mr. Hale said, the problem appeared to be an acceptable risk.

Noting that the shuttle is an experimental vehicle that should never be considered completely safe to fly, Mr. Hale said managers who heard all the arguments voted to fly on schedule, although some had a few reservations. Mr. Hale said the decision was not made to keep the shuttle launching program on schedule, a criticism of the space agency that was voiced by investigators after the 2003 Columbia accident.

“We are not going to let schedule drive us into making a decision,” Mr. Hale said at a news conference late Tuesday after the meeting at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “The preponderance of evidence, in my mind, is that we have an acceptable risk to go fly.”

Spaceflight will never be a risk-free proposition. Catastrophic failure will happen from time to time. I think everyone realizes that. But the recent debate over this launch has pitted safety issues against scheduling issues, and it looks like scheduling won out. Even if that isn't the case (and hale says it isn't), the appearance will be damning if anything goes wrong.

Posted by: Greg at 11:14 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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