Wayne Hale
Wayne Hale
N. Wayne Hale Jr.is a former NASA engineer. Previously a flight director and space shuttle program manager, Hale served as NASA's Deputy Associate Administrator for Strategic Partnerships prior to his retirement on July 31, 2010...
successful
It's been an outstandingly successful mission. We accomplished everything that we set out to do and more.
action prudent worry worst
It was prudent to take action so that we wouldn't have to worry about some of the worst consequences.
successful
It's been an outstandingly successful mission, ... We accomplished everything that we set out to do and more.
affects depend flights happens next
It does depend on what happens with those flights because when we get back from a mission, we have to see if there's anything that affects the next flight.
analysis discovery ground kennedy pace proving safe space tests toward work
The thing that's going to pace getting Discovery off the ground is not the work we're doing at the Kennedy Space Center. It is the engineering analysis and tests that go toward proving what we have assembled is safe to fly.
definitely
I definitely would not take that off the table.
bad craft flight pieces time
Any time you have pieces come off your craft in flight it's a really bad day.
call fact perhaps pieces small solid strike
Perhaps some of the small pieces did in fact strike the orbiter but we don't have what I'll call solid evidence.
call fact perhaps pieces small solid strike
Perhaps some of the small pieces did in fact strike the orbiter, but we don't have what I'll call solid evidence.
accomplish assemble clearly flights number space station
Clearly you can't have many more big, long stand-downs and accomplish the number of flights that it's going to take to assemble the International Space Station by that date.
air allowed area condense minimum number pal ready tank wire
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.
absolute worst
so is that the absolute worst thing that could happen? Well, no, it's not.
looked safer shuttle
We've looked end-to-end at the shuttle to make improvements and make it safer than it has ever been.
action blanket cleared concern decided discovery represents
We have cleared Discovery to re-enter and we have decided not to take any action on the thermal blanket because we think that it represents negligible concern at this time.