William Gerstenmaier Quotations

We're 'go' for the crew exchange and 'go' to continue flying to the space station.

The question is, what is the work force ready to do.

It's great that our Russian partners are here to help us during this time. It would never have occurred without the tragedy of Columbia. So out of that tragedy has come a remarkable relationship between our two countries and our two space programs.

We're going to have to make some modifications to the tank, so that probably puts the September (launch) window into a not very likely possibility.

We're going to do the right thing and let the data drive us where we need to go. I think we've got a unique opportunity to get this right.

We think that's the best thing to do, just take it off. I think we ought not to think about May right now.

We know a lot about the cracking phenomenon, but we still haven't pinpointed the cause. We know it's related to the chill down process and to some pressurization of the tank, but how those fit together...it's not an easy problem.

We're still going to be able to accomplish our goals for a good station configuration for shuttle retirement. In our schedule and planning we assumed that we'd have some shuttle problems along the way.

There's lots of options being investigated. We're not really sure where things are right now.

We know that oxygen generating systems in general have had a lot of problems over the years during start-up. We want to fly it early so we can work those out.