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Losing Discovery – Almost

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
April 18, 2012
Filed under , , ,

How We Nearly Lost Discovery, Wayne Hale
“Now that Discovery is safely delivered to the Smithsonian, I think I can tell the story of how we nearly lost her in July of 2005, and how well intentioned, highly motivated, hard working, smart people can miss the most obvious. … So were we stupid? Yes. Can you learn from our mistake? I hope so.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

5 responses to “Losing Discovery – Almost”

  1. npng says:
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    A great piece Wayne.  Thanks.

  2. Jim Duffy says:
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    Wayne, while working at Rockwell Intl Space Division in the 70’s as we designed and built the Shuttle Orbiters, I learned right away two lessons from the (very) experienced aerospace engineers.  Lesson #1:  Hardware don’t lie.  Lesson #2:  Listen to the hardware.

  3. bobhudson54 says:
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    Mr Hale, thank you for the interesting write. Space has proven to be unforgiving and not taking the necessary precautions have proven to be fatal as in the cases of Apollo 1, the near fatal Apollo 13,Challenger,Columbia. Your actions help prevent another catastrophe and allowed the program to progress.

  4. Randy Crawford says:
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    Nice article! We also very nearly lost Discovery in January 1985 to the very same o-ring issue that destroyed Challenger.

  5. richard schumacher says:
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    In fact but for luck assembly workers at Michaud might have caused the loss of a shuttle.  A former colleague who worked there in the early days told me about technicians who would start their shifts stoned out of their minds, whom he would not have trusted to spray foam on a fiberglass boat.