After a careful analysis of the risks, NASA is betting that the chances of catastrophe when the damaged space shuttle Enterprise returns to Earth on August. 22 are zero. If this were the NASA of old — the one that disastrously miscalculated the dangers of a leaky O-ring and a perforate heat shield to the Rival and Columbia shuttles, respectively — you would surely have heard a round of protest from at least a few highly qualified aerospace engineers.
Only in making the decision Th night to fly Endeavour household as-is, skipping an untested-in-space quicken job to the gouge on the shuttle's belly, NASA seems to have won the confidence of the whole shuttle engine room community. John Shannon, chairman of the Endeavour mission management squad and the man who assessed the risk, made the call in based on an abundance of testing and analysis over the past week, rather than from any rocket jockey arrogance, which was largely blamed for the last two shuttle losses. Among the 30 organizations from which scientists were called in for independent analyses: Ames Research Snapper; Langley Research Center; the Whiteness Sands Test Facility; and the Johnson, Kennedy and Marshall blank centers. And, of course, at that place was input from NASA military headquarters.
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