Deputy program manager for the first mission after the Columbia accident Popularity:
“The Columbia accident made us realize that we had been playing Russian roulette with the shuttle crews -- that we had been very, very fortunate in the past that the foam did not cause critical damage.”
“We have released Discovery to reenter, ... We have decided not to take any action on the thermal blanket because we have determined it is a negligible risk at this time.”
“Thousands of man hours [were spent] in developing new techniques so that foam in part and other components of the flight vehicle do not come loose during supersonic flight in the atmosphere as the orbiter climbs to orbit,”
“That tank we have to do a number of things to, at the minimum removing and replacing the PAL ramps, re-working the bipod closeout area where we think the wire may have actually allowed cryogenic ingestion of air to condense in an area, ... We have a number of things that we've got to do before we're ready to do that work.”
