Wayne Hale Quotations

There are certain risks involved. You could damage the tank.

We're going to keep (Atlantis) in as near flight-ready condition as we can without putting it through a (modification and overhaul) so we can use those parts.

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.

so is that the absolute worst thing that could happen? Well, no, it's not.

My immediate, knee-jerk reaction was that we can live with this, ... On the other hand, this is bigger than we've seen before.

None of the things I showed you are satisfactory. The good news is that the orbiter Discovery appears to be in good shape.

None of the things I showed you are satisfactory, ... The good news is that the orbiter Discovery appears to be in good shape.

If we had a catastrophic failure with Discovery, we'd need to figure out how to prevent that same problem from occurring on Atlantis.

We think all of that with a somewhat aggressive schedule can occur and lead to a launch before the window closes in May.

People are already calling us and asking us can they display one of our orbiters in their museum after we're done. I'm not giving anybody anything until we're all agreed the station is complete and the shuttles' job is done.

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.

I would not call that a serious launch date at this point.

We've looked end-to-end at the shuttle to make improvements and make it safer than it has ever been.

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.

We have not set an official launch date,

We have looked at that and it is a doable thing but the margins are small. It's better to have a plan, than to not have one.

We have looked at that and it is a doable thing but the margins are small, ... It's better to have a plan, than to not have one.

There are a total of 34 ice frost ramps on the external tank.

Time will tell. This is not like the railroad.

We were all hoping the Challenger would come out of that cloud of smoke.

We don't want the parts to come apart.

we would not in any conceivable way be able to launch before Saturday.

We have a considerable amount of work ahead of us. We won't proceed until we've done the work to prove that it's safe to fly.

You guys ought to be aware, and we have got to make it clear to everybody we talk to, when we launch the next flight, there is still going to be foam come off the tank.

We were playing the odds. The hardware was talking to us, and we were not paying attention.

We will not launch until we are sure we can do it safely. But if we launch by July, we are confident we can still get three flights up this year.

We wish it had worked out differently, but it's first and foremost that we fly safely. It was prudent to change these sensors out.

We are under no thought of delaying launch.

Everything seems to be looking very good for a landing Monday evening at the Kennedy Space Center.

Foam will still come off the tank after we have done all of these mitigation efforts. We believe the pieces that come off will be small.

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.

Perhaps some of the small pieces did in fact strike the orbiter but we don't have what I'll call solid evidence.

Perhaps some of the small pieces did in fact strike the orbiter, but we don't have what I'll call solid evidence.

So we're going to try to keep it in as near flight ready condition as we can without putting it through an OMDP so we can use those parts. Quite frankly, people are already calling us and asking us can they display one of our orbiters in their museum after we're done with it. I'm not giving anybody anything until we're all agreed the station is complete and the shuttle's job is done. In the sense that we're talking about mothballing, I'm not sure that's the term I'd use.

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.

They're working to compress a decade's worth of study into two days.

It was prudent to take action so that we wouldn't have to worry about some of the worst consequences.

It's been an outstandingly successful mission. We accomplished everything that we set out to do and more.

It's been an outstandingly successful mission, ... We accomplished everything that we set out to do and more.

It's not going to be like, shuttle ends and we send out our resumes and see if we can find a job at Wal-Mart or McDonald's. This is going to be, 'Oh My goodness! Where are we going to get enough people to do all the things on our plate?

I wanted to make sure everyone understands we are trying to eliminate critical foam loss, but we will expect to see foam coming off this next tank.

Any time you have pieces come off your craft in flight it's a really bad day.

I'm beginning to feel very bullish about the possibility of making May,

I remain optimistic. There remains a lot of work to be done. We won't proceed until we've done the work to prove that it's safe to fly.

I remain optimistic that if we fly by this summer, we will be able to get three flights off. But time will tell. This is not like the railroad.

In the long run, we have decided we would like to remove this fairly large piece of foam, just eliminate the hazard that it might cause. We think we have a very strong case to be ready to take that ramp off by the third flight tank. Some folks believe we can accelerate that and potentially even remove it for the STS-121 tank.

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.

I definitely would not take that off the table.

However, based on the discussion we had at the program board yesterday it appears that the May launch window is something we can begin to work on -- the launch window May 3 to May 23.

The gap fillers, that's a product of the fact that we can see more and do a better job of evaluating. That's probably something that's happened in flight before, but this is the first time we've known about it and could take remedial action.

The lowest risk, the best choice and the unanimous decision of the engineers in the management team is that we should re-enter as is.

Having three operational vehicles in the fleet affords the shuttle program great schedule flexibility as we move toward flying safely and completing the international space station.

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.

The bottom line is there is large uncertainty because nobody has a very good handle on the aerodynamics at those altitudes and at those speeds. Given that large degree of uncertainty, life could be normal during entry or some bad things could happen.