Space Shuttle Program Update On STS-121

1
NASA OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

303 E STREET, S.W., #P
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20546
(202) 358-1600
"Space Shuttle Program Update on STS-121"
SPEAKERS:
MICHAEL GRIFFIN, Administrator, NASA
WAYNE HALE, Manager, Space Shuttle Program
BILL GERSTENMAIER, Associate Administrator,
Space Operations
KEN WELZYN, External Tank Chief Engineer
[Moderated by Dean Acosta]
11:10 a.m. through 11:41 a.m., EST

Friday, April 28, 2006
[TRANSCRIPT PREPARED FROM A NASA TV WEBCAST RECORDING.]
MALLOY TRANSCRIPTION SERVICE

(202) 362-6622
2
1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 MR. ACOSTA: Good morning. Welcome from
3 Headquarters here in Washington, D.C., for today's Space
4 Shuttle Update. Today's participants include NASA
5 Administrator Michael Griffin, Space Operations Associate
6 Administrator Bill Gerstenmaier. From the Marshall Space
7 Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, we have Space Shuttle
8 Program Manager Wayne Hale and External Tank Chief Engineer
9 Ken Welzyn.
10 We will have some short opening remarks followed
11 by some questions and answers, starting here in Washington
12 first, and then we will go around to reporters at the
13 centers.
14 As is customary, please identify yourself and
15 your organization before asking your question and also
16 address whoever you are asking your question to as well.
17 As another reminder, please turn off all cell
18 phones and blackberries before we get started.
19 All right. It is now my pleasure to introduce
20 NASA Administrator Mike Griffin.
21 ADMINISTRATOR GRIFFIN: Thanks, Dean.
22 [Inaudible] want us all to hear from first is Wayne.

(202) 362-6622
3
1 MR. ACOSTA: Okay.
2 ADMINISTRATOR GRIFFIN: I'm primarily here for
3 top-level issues, and if we get one of those, I'll handle
4 it.
5 MR. ACOSTA: All right. Wayne, we will go to
6 you first, and let's hear your opening remarks.
7 MR. HALE: Thank you, and good morning,
8 everybody. I appreciate the interest and the turnout that
9 we have had here to discuss the status of the Space
10 Shuttle, and I want to start out by saying that we have
11 celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Space
12 Shuttle just a few days ago, and it is a remarkable thing
13 to think about, all of the folks that worked to design this
14 incredible vehicle, 30 years ago, to its first maiden
15 flight, 25 years ago, and all the incredible activities
16 that we have been able to do in space because we have this
17 wonderful machine.
18 But as you know, we do have a serious concern
19 with debris, particularly debris coming off the external
20 tank and the foam that can come off the tank. It was
21 clearly something that we had not carefully considered
22 before the Columbia accident or as carefully as we should

(202) 362-6622
4
1 have, and we have spent this past considerable period of
2 time working to make the debris situation, the potential
3 for liberation of foam off of the tank, as small as we
4 possibly can.
5 I am reminded of the words of Dr. Diane Vaughan
6 who talked about NASA in a book about an earlier problem
7 that we had that foam is, in her definition, "an unruly
8 technology," and what she meant by that and what I
9 understand that she meant by that is that it is not well
10 understood in the way that we understand metals and some
11 other aspects of engineering. It is a science, the
12 understanding of the mechanical properties of foam.
13 Insulation is something that we are going to be working on
14 for some time.
15 What we have done in the Space Shuttle Program is
16 to take a look at our largest potential areas of threat
17 from foam loss and attach each one of them. Clearly, the
18 first area to work on was the 1.6 pounds of foam that we
19 lost during the Columbia launch that caused that accident.
20 We have eliminated the bipod ramps off the outside of the
21 external tank, so that there is no continued threat from
22 that large piece of foam.

(202) 362-6622
5
1 We made improvements in a number of areas and
2 then decided to fly what we have termed our "first of two
3 test flights," STS-114, to see if we had, in fact, done
4 enough to mitigate foam loss, and as you frequently do in
5 test flights, we found that there was another mechanism
6 that we had not considered, another opportunity to lose
7 foam that we should address when we lost a
8 just-over-one-pound piece of foam off what we call the
9 protuberance airload ramp, the PAL ramp, and the pass
10 several months, we had been working very hard to eliminate
11 that ramp and make sure that we can fly without that large
12 piece of foam.
13 That change constitutes the largest aerodynamic
14 change that we have made to the Space Shuttle launch system
15 since it first flew, and we are approaching that with a
16 great deal of care, doing the work necessary to prove that
17 the aerodynamics will still be good, that we have not
18 introduced an aerodynamic loads problem that could cause
19 the structure underlying to come to grief. That is a very
20 intricate process, and that still faces us for our next
21 flight, and we will be working on ensuring that the removal
22 of the PAL ramp was a safe thing to do, almost up to the

(202) 362-6622
6
1 Flight Readiness Review. We expect to have our final
2 report out of the loads assessment people and the
3 aerodynamics people just before the Flight Readiness
4 Review.
5 At the same time, we know that past the PAL ramp,
6 there is further work we would like to do on the tank.
7 There are more areas where we have seen historically foam
8 loss, and yesterday -- or I should say that we know the
9 next largest area that we are concerned about is something
10 called "ice frost ramps," which I have got a model of and
11 we will talk about in a minute, and some months ago, we
12 determined that if we were going to modify the ice frost
13 ramps during this preparation for the STS-121 flight, that
14 the appropriate time to modify those ice frost ramps would
15 be the first week in May.
16 Every Thursday, we have programmatic review
17 board, and we had pencilled in sometime back, April 27th as
18 being the date that we would review whether it is
19 appropriate or not to make a change to the ice frost ramps.
20 We had that review yesterday. It was an
21 outstanding review. It represented the culmination of work
22 of literally hundreds of people, many, many tests, many

(202) 362-6622
7
1 designs. Some of you had been following the work that's
2 been going on in the wind tunnels around the country where
3 we have put some of these test articles to see how they
4 will work out, and we reached a conclusion yesterday that
5 it was mixed conclusion, as many of the decisions that are
6 brought to the program manager's desk are.
7 There are folks that have opinions on both sides,
8 people that come from strong technical backgrounds and give
9 me and the other management team great advice, and
10 yesterday was a typical day in that we got some mixed
11 recommendations and made a decision.
12 Let me talk a little bit about what we've got.
13 On my left, your right, here is a test article that has got
14 one of the ice frost ramps in a test configuration where we
15 have been using it here at the Marshall Space Flight Center
16 to see the effects on the back side of this piece-part
17 model. Cryogenic liquids helium is normally introduced, so
18 that we can see how the foam will react to that, whether it
19 will keep ice from forming, whether it will crack, whether
20 other things might happen.
21 These ramps are spread out over the rank, and by
22 way of background, we have over 4,000 pounds of foam

(202) 362-6622
8
1 insulating the external tank. About three-quarters of that
2 is robotically sprayed onto the outside of the tank. About
3 one-quarter of that foam is applied manually. These ice
4 frost ramps are applied manually.
5 I have a scale model which perhaps shows even
6 better. On the outside of the tank, looking at the tank in
7 the vertical, we have the big 17-inch LOX line, liquid
8 oxygen line, coming down to the right, and then we have the
9 other protuberances. Remember, we talked about the
10 protuberance airload ramp.
11 We have a cable tray that carries instrumentation
12 from the bottom to the top of the tank. We have two
13 pressurization lines, one for the hydrogen and one for the
14 oxygen, that run from the engines in the Space Shuttle
15 orbiter up to the top of those two tanks to keep them
16 pressurized during flight.
17 All of these things are connected to the
18 underlying aluminum tank with metal brackets, and if that
19 metal were uninsulated in the warm and humid environment in
20 Florida, ice would form, and that would be unacceptable to
21 us. So we apply foam to the outside of those brackets.
22 Historically, we have seen as much as 2- or

(202) 362-6622
9
1 3-ounce pieces of foam come off these brackets, these "ice
2 frost ramps" as we call them. We have been trying very
3 hard to come up with a shape that will not lose foam, but
4 will at the same time insulate these brackets. That work
5 is still ongoing.
6 The decision that we had to come to yesterday was
7 a question of whether it is appropriate to make more than
8 one major change to the aerodynamic outer shell of the
9 vehicle.
10 When we came right down to it, the recommendation
11 that I came to and provided to the Administrator and to the
12 Associate Administration is that we are in a flight test
13 program, classical flight test if you look at aircraft or
14 other experimental vehicles. When you make a major change,
15 you should fly that major change without other major
16 changes to see how it performed, and then if you have
17 subsequent changes to be made, you make those in subsequent
18 flights.
19 The reason we had such an interesting discussion
20 -- and I would say that it was not outside the usual kind
21 of interesting discussion we have at our requirements board
22 -- is because there is a foam loss that we have seen and we

(202) 362-6622
10
1 will expect to see off of the ice frost ramps on the next
2 flight. It is not without risk to fly these ice frost
3 ramps as they exist.
4 There was a strong concerted opinion from several
5 folks that we should wait until we have a good design on
6 these pieces of foam and then change them as well before we
7 go fly. That is not without merit, and we considered it
8 very strongly. However, at the end of the day, we came
9 back to the fact that it is more appropriate to make one
10 change at a time, to take care of the biggest problem that
11 we have, and then work our way to the next situation that
12 we would like to improve, and I expect that will be the
13 story of the external tank for the remainder of the life of
14 the Space Shuttle Program.
15 I surely hope and plan that the next vehicle that
16 we as an agency make will have eliminated this kind of
17 concern in its basic design and we won't have to worry
18 about it. Clearly, they will have plenty of challenges as
19 they go on to the Moon that will involve risk decisions in
20 the future as well.
21 So, at the end of the day yesterday, the decision
22 going forward was to fly, leaving these ice frost ramps as

(202) 362-6622
11
1 is, knowing that we will expect to have some small foam
2 loss that could pose a risk to us, or occur during the next
3 flight or maybe two, while we continue to investigate how
4 well our major aerodynamic change performs, and then we
5 will proceed to deal with these smaller areas of foam loss.
6 That is about all I have to say, and I will ask
7 if anybody else has an opening statement or if we are ready
8 to go to questions.
9 MR. ACOSTA: Gerst?
10 MR. GERSTENMAIER: I think Wayne has covered it
11 really well. I think he described the discussions that we
12 got a chance to hear and see the work that the team has
13 done over this period of time. I think it is a real
14 tribute to the team that has pulled this work together.
15 You know, we started kind of last September with
16 this overall plan of where we were going to do this testing
17 and when the analysis was going to be complete, and through
18 that entire period, all that work has been accomplished by
19 the teams pretty much on schedule that allowed us to have
20 this meeting yesterday to make this decision. So, if you
21 look all the way back from September to where we are today,
22 the teams have executed that plan through lots of problems.

(202) 362-6622
12
1 The hurricane didn't help with all that, but the teams
2 worked through all that stuff.
3 They continue to do a great job to bring us a
4 good set of data yesterday. A tremendous amount of wind
5 tunnel work has gone into this. I can't stress how hard
6 they have worked in getting these wind tunnel tests done.
7 They are not easy, to run these wind tunnel tests. It is
8 not easy to understand this data.
9 The team did a phenomenal job to get all of this
10 stuff together in as clean a format as we could hear
11 yesterday from the team. So it was really a tribute to see
12 this team perform and get ready to make a tough decision,
13 but to get all of the data together and in place, it took
14 multiple months and took a lot of personal work from a lot
15 of folks, and I am really proud of Wayne and his team for
16 doing this activity.
17 MR. ACOSTA: I have learned not to ask Mike if he
18 has an opening statement. So we will go ahead and go
19 straight to questions and answers. We will start here in
20 Washington, D.C.
21 Again, I ask that you identify yourself and your
22 organization before asking your questions, and then we will

(202) 362-6622
13
1 go to other centers around the country.
2 All right. We will go ahead and start off with
3 Guy.
4 QUESTIONER: Guy Gugliotta from The Washington
5 Post.
6 I guess for Wayne, does this mean that you have
7 not up to now hit on a new design for the ice frost ramps
8 that is an improvement over the old design?
9 MR. HALE: We have been working very diligently
10 -- I should say the folks particularly here at Marshall
11 Space Flight Center, along with our Lockheed Martin
12 contractors that build the external tank for us, have been
13 working extremely hard to come up with a new shape for the
14 ice frost ramps that provides both of the characteristics
15 that we desire, which is to say does not form ice during
16 the time that we are sitting on the launch pad with the
17 cryogenics present and also will hold together and not shed
18 foam for any reason during the launch phase as we
19 accelerate to supersonic speeds through the lower
20 atmosphere.
21 That is not an easy process. We do not have the
22 perfect or final design in place today. There are a couple

(202) 362-6622
14
1 of conceptual designs. Great progress is being made. I
2 expect in the next month to 6 weeks, we will come forward
3 with a really good design that we will implement on
4 subsequent tanks.
5 MR. ACOSTA: All right. Next question, Keith.
6 QUESTIONER: Keith Cowing, NASAwatch.com, for
7 Wayne.
8 I have gotten some really interesting feedback
9 from people in and around this meeting. Some thought you
10 were too conservative in making this decision. Some
11 thought you were being risky. Some thought it was great
12 that you finally just, you know, have a process in place
13 where you can listen to the hardware, so to speak, and just
14 make a decision. Others thought that you didn't put the
15 time into it.
16 This has been a long path since you have been
17 sitting in this position, answering this question, but do
18 you feel that schedule pressure is still there, or has it
19 morphed into something that you can at least cut off in
20 pieces and chew a little bit better?
21 MR. HALE: Well, you know, I'm mindful of the
22 fact, we just had a big project management conference in

(202) 362-6622
15
1 NASA, and it got reemphasized to us that a good project or
2 program manager does have to consider cost and schedule
3 along with the technical performance that he is trying to
4 achieve, that the program or project is trying to achieve.
5 In this particular instance, however, I felt that
6 this was an important enough decision that we should
7 divorce cost and schedule from this decision and make it on
8 purely technical grounds and then deal with the fallout.
9 We have a schedule. It is important to have a
10 schedule. We intend to complete the International Space
11 Station in the next 4-1/2 years, but that didn't drive this
12 particular discussion, and we are trying to make
13 appropriate decisions in light of the schedule and not let
14 it drive us to overly risky or foolish decisions just to
15 make a schedule that we know has some time in it to allow
16 for engineering problems to be solved.
17 MR. ACOSTA: All right. We will take one more
18 question here in Washington, and then we will go to JSC.
19 We will go to Beth.
20 QUESTIONER: Beth Dickey with Government
21 Executive.
22 Given that you have now got one more foam issue

(202) 362-6622
16
1 to deal with after you fly the next flight, for any of the
2 three of you, is this going to alter the plan to have two
3 flights as a return-to-flight test, or might you add a
4 third now?
5 MR. HALE: Beth, we're going to take this one
6 step at a time, and we currently have plans to launch the
7 next two flights, so that they have full daylight coverage,
8 so that we can get the best data back from the tank to see
9 how the foam performed. We will make that decision
10 following the next flight or two to see how we are doing.
11 After that, we also have the radar, which is
12 tracking any debris that might be shed off the vehicle.
13 You know, we made quite a sizeable investment in
14 considerable new radar that can do quite an interesting job
15 of finding small things that come off the launch vehicle,
16 and we have new cameras that are oriented in a direction
17 where we -- some people believe at least that the light
18 from the solid rocket boosters would provide sufficient
19 illumination to still have good visual evidence through
20 what we call "first stage" or the first 2 minutes of
21 Shuttle flight to see what is going on. So we are going to
22 see where the data leads us.

(202) 362-6622
17
1 Obviously, it is in the interest of getting on
2 with Space Station assembly to be able to return to night
3 launch operations, and that is where we would like to get,
4 but we will measure that one flight at a time.
5 MR. ACOSTA: All right. Let's go to the Johnson
6 Space Center in Houston for a couple questions.
7 QUESTIONER: This is Mark Carreau from the
8 Houston Chronicle.
9 Could you explain the number of ice frost ramps
10 that are really on the tank and how many of them, if not
11 all of them, that you are really concerned about?
12 MR. HALE: I hate to say it, but here in
13 Huntsville, we could not hear the question. It was very
14 low.
15 MR. ACOSTA: Sure. I will read the question,
16 Wayne. The question was can you explain how many ice frost
17 ramps are on the vehicle or on the external tank and what
18 the --
19 PARTICIPANT: How many of those are you concerned
20 with.
21 MR. ACOSTA: Yeah. And how many of those are you
22 concerned with.

(202) 362-6622
18
1 MR. HALE: Ken -- I brought him to the press
2 conference. We need to let him answer one question.
3 So, Ken, I will let you take that.
4 MR. WELZYN: Okay. There are a total of 34 ice
5 frost ramps on the external tank. There are, I believe, 12
6 on the liquid oxygen tank and 16 on the liquid hydrogen
7 tank, and I believe the balance is on the inner tank.
8 The main concern that we have from a debris
9 standpoint turns out to be about the top four on the
10 hydrogen tank. These are in an area where thermally they
11 warm up as the liquid level drains from the tank during the
12 time of flight when debris poses a risk to the Shuttle.
13 Obviously, we are concerned about foam loss from
14 all of them, but those are the ones that are primary
15 concern for us.
16 MR. ACOSTA: All right, Mark?
17 [No response.]
18 MR. ACOSTA: Next question from Johnson?
19 QUESTIONER: This is Mark Carreau. I'm sorry we
20 didn't hear anything, but let me ask a follow-up. What is
21 the expected mass and the allowable mass of foam loss that
22 you are going to work with on this next mission?

(202) 362-6622
19
1 MR. ACOSTA: That sounded like Charlie Brown's
2 teacher asking a question. I think we may have to repeat
3 that one.
4 All right. We are going to come back to
5 Washington and see if we can work out some of those bugs of
6 those questions. We will go to Jeff Morris over here.
7 QUESTIONER: Hi. Jeff Morris with Aerospace
8 Daily, I guess for Wayne or Ken.
9 You said 2- to 3-ounce pieces historically of
10 foam have been observed coming off. I was just wondering
11 what is kind of the worst-case scenario of damage that a
12 piece that size or maybe multiple pieces could do.
13 MR. HALE: Our aerodynamics folks and materiel
14 science folks tell us that the worst case, if it came off
15 with the maximum mass, which would be on the order of 3 or
16 3-1/2 ounces, and comes off at the worst time and follows
17 the worst-possible trajectory to the most vulnerable part
18 of the orbiter, it would not be what we would like to have.
19 I don't know how to characterize it more than that. It
20 would cause what we call "critical damage."
21 So our goal is to eliminate or mitigate -- thank
22 you. That's the word I was thinking of. To mitigate that

(202) 362-6622
20
1 hazard to the maximum extent that we possibly can, and we
2 intend to do that, and you know, once we deal with the ice
3 frost ramps, then we are going to move on to the next area
4 of the tank that we are concerned about that is potentially
5 shedding even smaller pieces and work on that one. So this
6 will be a continuous improvement process throughout the
7 life of the program.
8 MR. ACOSTA: All right. Now we are going to go
9 to Marshall Space Flight Center where Wayne is to get a
10 couple of questions.
11 QUESTIONER: Hi. This is Shelby Spires with the
12 Huntsville Times, and this question is either for the
13 Administrator or Wayne.
14 Wayne, you mentioned that you are committed to
15 finishing or completing the International Space Station,
16 but given that there is 3-1/2, 4 years left, do you think
17 you will make the flight rate? Is that flight rate that
18 has been reported of 16 to 18 flights doable, and is the
19 2010 date still the retirement date for the Shuttle, or is
20 that a solid date?
21 MR. HALE: I am going to take the easy part of
22 that first and tell you that, yes, that number of flights

(202) 362-6622
21
1 in the next 4-1/2 years is immanently doable and well
2 within the kind of flight rate that the Shuttle has
3 provided the Nation before. So I am very optimistic that
4 we can complete the International Space Station in the time
5 that we have been asked to do it, and we will have to be
6 very diligent in looking at this aging vehicle and make
7 sure that it is safe to fly every time we get ready to go
8 fly it, but I think we have the resources and the
9 capability to do that.
10 ADMINISTRATOR GRIFFIN: And I will pick up my
11 piece of that. The short answer is, yes, 2010 is a firm
12 date.
13 Let me expand a little bit on the reasons for
14 that. If this program, if the Space Shuttle program were
15 of a nature that it was dominated by the variable cost of
16 flight, the cost of flying each individual flight, then the
17 right thing to do would be to plan a certain number of
18 flights for budgetary purposes and execute that number
19 because then we would have known budgetary requirements and
20 we would be done, but this is a program whose marginal cost
21 of flight is actually quite reasonable, but for which the
22 fixed costs of ownership are quite high and variously, you

(202) 362-6622
22
1 know, known to be about $4.5 billion a year.
2 So we at NASA, we, in fact, in the Federal
3 Government, cannot do budgetary planning for this program
4 unless we pick a date when we will be done with it. We
5 have to pick a year that will be the last year we will fly
6 Shuttle flights and stick with that, and that is what we
7 are doing, and those are the reasons.
8 MR. ACOSTA: All right. Let's come back to
9 Washington here and see if there are any follow-up
10 questions. Let's go to Guy.
11 QUESTIONER: Guy Gugliotta again from The
12 Washington Post for Wayne.
13 How has the removal of the PAL ramp affected the
14 performance of the ice frost ramps, if at all?
15 MR. HALE: That is exactly the kind of question,
16 not just the ice frost ramp performance, but all the other
17 areas of the external tank and, in fact, the integrated
18 stack with the orbiter and the solid rocket boosters on it
19 that we are looking at.
20 Clearly, there are increased aerodynamic loads on
21 some structural elements. In particular, we talked about
22 the protuberances, that the PAL ramp was put on there to

(202) 362-6622
23
1 provide some aerodynamic relief from. So the principal
2 things we are concerned about is the cable tray and the
3 attached brackets that underlie that cable tray and how
4 they fit onto the skin of the tank and these two
5 pressurization lines and, in fact, the big 17-inch liquid
6 oxygen line as well. So that is exactly the kind of
7 analysis that has gone forward to demonstrate both the wind
8 tunnels computational fluid dynamics and structural
9 analysis that those parts will hold together under
10 increased load because, without the PAL ramp, there will be
11 increased loading, and, in fact, we are looking at the
12 whole integrated structure, solid rocket booster attachment
13 points, the orbiter, and all other areas to ensure that we
14 have not introduced some unanticipated consequence that
15 would be untoward.
16 So the performance of the overall vehicle has got
17 to be satisfactory from a mechanical and structural
18 standpoint. That, we have yet to complete the analysis on.
19 In terms of other performance, the good news is
20 that is about 37 pounds of weight that we no longer will be
21 carrying to orbit that we can devote to additional supplies
22 to the International Space Station, for example.

(202) 362-6622
24
1 MR. ACOSTA: Gerst, did you want to follow that?
2 MR. GERSTENMAIER: I would add one thing to that.
3 In the discussion that I listened to yesterday, we are
4 really kind of pushing this state-of-the-art over analysis
5 and wind tunnel capabilities throughout the country. There
6 is not really one wind tunnel where you can simulate all
7 the proper conditions that are going on with the tank.
8 There is not really one test facility where you can
9 simulate all these things that come together in a Shuttle
10 launch.
11 The tank expands when it is pressurized. It
12 contracts when it is cooled down. The vibration from the
13 solid rocket motors cause vibration through the tank
14 structure which go through the bracketry, those press lines
15 that Wayne showed you. Those have fluid or gasses flowing
16 through them. They are moving up and down. They are
17 dynamically moving in and out. All of that is tremendously
18 difficult to simulate in our test facilities and to put
19 together in computational flight dynamics.
20 So, at some point, you really need to go to
21 flight, and you need to go to flight with some
22 instrumentation, so you can monitor that performance and

(202) 362-6622
25
1 see how the device and design you put together with the
2 best of your engineering capabilities actually performs in
3 flight, and that is exactly what we are doing here.
4 We are going to have some new cameras on the
5 solid rocket boosters that we can look at these areas. We
6 should be able to see the ice frost ramps. We should be
7 able to see the small foam liberation that we expect to see
8 come off, and then that data is going to be invaluable to
9 go back and improve our wind tunnel models and improve our
10 computational fluid dynamics and take a piece-wise
11 incremental step in the improvement in the design.
12 So we continue to monitor on each flight. We
13 take all the data we can get from the flight. We put it
14 together with all of our ground assets. We make the best
15 decision, and we move incrementally better on each flight.
16 MR. ACOSTA: Zach or anybody else up front that
17 wants to ask a question?
18 [No response.]
19 MR. ACOSTA: All right. Well, it looks like we
20 are going to be wrapping up a little earlier today.
21 ADMINISTRATOR GRIFFIN: Anything back from
22 Houston?

(202) 362-6622
26
1 MR. ACOSTA: We do not. So thank you for asking,
2 Mike.
3 Any closing remarks from Wayne?
4 MR. HALE: Just that we are continuing to work
5 toward the July 1st launch opportunity. We have a huge
6 amount of work ahead of us, but we have a good plan I think
7 and we have many dedicated people that are working very
8 hard here at the Marshall Space Flight Center. Kennedy
9 Space Center, Johnson, and the other NASA centers around
10 the agency have really stepped up to help us.
11 I particularly want to thank the folks at the
12 Arnold Engineering Laboratories as well as Glenn Research
13 Center and Ames Research Center where we have been doing
14 all of this wonderful wind tunnel testing and using the
15 super computers at the Ames Research Center to do our
16 computational fluid dynamics work that makes all of this
17 possible for us to feel confident when we go fly.
18 MR. ACOSTA: Thanks, Wayne.
19 Gerst?
20 MR. GERSTENMAIER: Nothing to add.
21 MR. ACOSTA: Okay. Mike?
22 ADMINISTRATOR GRIFFIN: No.

(202) 362-6622
27
1 MR. ACOSTA: All right. Well, that is going to
2 conclude today's Space Shuttle Update.
3 I would like to remind folks that 2:00 Eastern
4 today, we are going to have the Exploration Workshop Media
5 Telecon.
6 I think, Mike, you wanted to mention a little
7 something about the Exploration Workshop that has been
8 going on.
9 ADMINISTRATOR GRIFFIN: Yes. I haven't been able
10 to attend it, but I keep getting reports that the people
11 who are there are really pretty happy with it. This is
12 following the release of our architectural blueprint, I
13 guess I should say, for returning to the Moon. This is the
14 first major conference or major event we have had where
15 people can gather together and get to the interesting stuff
16 which is what do we want to do when we get there.
17 When we don't have the transportation capability,
18 which, of course, is where we are right now, all the focus
19 has been on re-creating the lunar transportation system
20 that we once had and doing so in a manner that will allow
21 us to have the maximum transferability to Mars later on,
22 and I think we have done that.

(202) 362-6622
28
1 But the really interesting part is what do we do
2 when we get off the Earth again for the first time in
3 decades, and that is what this conference has been devoted
4 to. We have had folks from industry and folks from other
5 countries and folks from the program out there, and I am
6 looking forward to hearing how that went at 2:00 myself.
7 MR. ACOSTA: That will be great.
8 Deputy Administrator Shana Dale along with
9 Exploration Systems Mission Director, Deputy Doug Cooke,
10 will be the participants in that media telecon. So we
11 invite everybody here that is certainly here and out at the
12 centers that want to take part to take part in today's
13 telecon, which will also be streamed on NASA.gov.
14 All right. That is going to do it for today's
15 Space Shuttle Update. We thank you for joining us, and
16 have a great afternoon.
17 [End of Space Shuttle Program Update on STS-121.]
18 - - -

(202) 362-6622

Space Shuttle Program Update On STS-121

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Space Shuttle Program Update On STS-121

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

1

NASA OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

"Space Shuttle Program Update on STS-121"

[Moderated by Dean Acosta]

11:10 a.m. through 11:41 a.m., EST

[TRANSCRIPT PREPARED FROM A NASA TV WEBCAST RECORDING.]

MALLOY TRANSCRIPTION SERVICE

2 MR. ACOSTA: Good morning. Welcome from

3 Headquarters here in Washington, D.C., for today's Space

4 Shuttle Update. Today's participants include NASA

5 Administrator Michael Griffin, Space Operations Associate

6 Administrator Bill Gerstenmaier. From the Marshall Space

7 Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, we have Space Shuttle

8 Program Manager Wayne Hale and External Tank Chief Engineer

10 We will have some short opening remarks followed

11 by some questions and answers, starting here in Washington

12 first, and then we will go around to reporters at the

14 As is customary, please identify yourself and

15 your organization before asking your question and also

16 address whoever you are asking your question to as well.

17 As another reminder, please turn off all cell

18 phones and blackberries before we get started.

19 All right. It is now my pleasure to introduce

20 NASA Administrator Mike Griffin.

21 ADMINISTRATOR GRIFFIN: Thanks, Dean.

22 [Inaudible] want us all to hear from first is Wayne.

MALLOY TRANSCRIPTION SERVICE

1 MR. ACOSTA: Okay.

2 ADMINISTRATOR GRIFFIN: I'm primarily here for

3 top-level issues, and if we get one of those, I'll handle

5 MR. ACOSTA: All right. Wayne, we will go to

6 you first, and let's hear your opening remarks.

7 MR. HALE: Thank you, and good morning,

8 everybody. I appreciate the interest and the turnout that

9 we have had here to discuss the status of the Space

10 Shuttle, and I want to start out by saying that we have

11 celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Space

12 Shuttle just a few days ago, and it is a remarkable thing

13 to think about, all of the folks that worked to design this

14 incredible vehicle, 30 years ago, to its first maiden

15 flight, 25 years ago, and all the incredible activities

16 that we have been able to do in space because we have this

18 But as you know, we do have a serious concern

19 with debris, particularly debris coming off the external

21 clearly something that we had not carefully considered

22 before the Columbia accident or as carefully as we should

MALLOY TRANSCRIPTION SERVICE

1 have, and we have spent this past considerable period of

2 time working to make the debris situation, the potential

3 for liberation of foam off of the tank, as small as we

5 I am reminded of the words of Dr. Diane Vaughan

6 who talked about NASA in a book about an earlier problem

7 that we had that foam is, in her definition, "an unruly

8 technology," and what she meant by that and what I

9 understand that she meant by that is that it is not well

10 understood in the way that we understand metals and some

11 other aspects of engineering. It is a science, the

12 understanding of the mechanical properties of foam.

13 Insulation is something that we are going to be working on

14 for some time.

15 What we have done in the Space Shuttle Program is

16 to take a look at our largest potential areas of threat