Discovery Crew Prefers Rescue to Flying Repaired Craft Home

Astronauts preparing to launch on the first space shuttle flight since the Columbia accident more than two years ago expressed reservations Thursday about the feasibility of repairing a damaged orbiter and safely flying it home.

Members of the seven-person Discovery crew, scheduled to launch May 15, said the strategies to repair damaged tiles were still unproven.

“This is an experimental flight,” said Charles Camarda, a mission specialist from New York who would be making his first flight into space aboard Discovery. “I don’t believe [repair techniques] are certified in my opinion.”

Addressing scores of reporters during preflight briefings at the Johnson Space Center, Camarda said that if the damage occurred in a noncritical area, he could envision risking a repair instead of waiting in the International Space Station for a rescue ship.

But if the damage was in an area that would experience high heating during reentry, such as the leading edge of a wing, “I wouldn’t want my crew or any crew to fly back,” Camarda said.

His sentiments were echoed by several other astronauts during three days of briefings, which have served as a coming-out party for the latest shuttle crew.

Mission managers, however, have expressed greater confidence in the five repair techniques developed over the last two years.

Despite the apparent difference of opinion, the astronauts said they remained confident their managers wouldn’t let them go into space -- or return home -- until every potential danger had been addressed.

The shuttle Columbia was damaged during liftoff when a piece of foam insulation from the orbiter’s external fuel tank broke off and hit the leading edge of the left wing. Even though some engineers on the ground saw the foam hitting the wing, mission managers decided foam could not harm the orbiter. Instead, the foam made a hole in the wing that caused the destruction of the orbiter on reentry which killed all seven astronauts.

An accident team concluded that a less-than-vigilant and sometimes arrogant NASA culture led to the accident.

The team demanded that NASA develop repair methods so that astronauts could fix problems in space.

Five methods to repair the orbiter’s heat-absorbing tiles and the reinforced carbon-carbon compound covering the nose and the leading edges of the wings have been devised.

Two will be taken into space and tested by the Discovery crew during spacewalks.

The shuttle is scheduled for a 13-day mission. Besides testing repair methods, the crew will deliver food and water to the space station, along with a replacement for a washing machine-sized gyroscope that failed.

The crew members are shuttle commander Eileen Collins, a retired Air Force colonel heading her second shuttle flight; pilot James Kelly, an Air Force lieutenant colonel; and mission specialists Soichi Noguchi, Stephen Robinson, Andrew Thomas, Wendy Lawrence and Camarda.

Collins said she and other crew members had planned a ceremony to honor the lost Columbia crew.

“I know we will feel closer to them as we experience this flight,” she said.

The crew has been asked several times this week whether NASA’s culture has really changed in the wake of Columbia.

“We are stronger,” Collins said. “We are smarter. We’re more humble. And we’re safer.”