Lost to Space?

Since last Wednesday's launch, there has been much speculation concerning the safety of the Space Shuttle Endeavour (Mission STS-118), and it's crew. The shuttle's belly made contact with a grapefruit-sized piece of fuel-tank foam that broke off a bracket on the external fuel tank. It was a piece of foam that collided with the shuttle Columbia in 2003, that led to the ship being destroyed during reentry. The gash in the Endeavour has exposed part of the ship's skin. If this part is exposed to the extreme heat of reentry into Earth's atmosphere, Endeavour would follow Columbia. Columbia was orginally scheduled to fly this mission.

Columbia's destruction sent out a major wake-up call to NASA. It was a call that led NASA to a two year halt on missions to space. Crew members may perform a check on shuttle and may even try to repair it, but repairs could do more bad than good. Of course NASA has always been very cautious in the field of work their in, but wouldn't it be a good idea to have an escape plan? Is it possible to have a spacecraft simliar to the Apollo orbiter? A craft inserted into part of a space shuttle or connected to the International Space Station (ISS).

Amoung the crew includes Barbara Morgan, a teacher who twenty-two years ago was backup for Christa McAuliffe. Christa was another teacher who boarded the doomed Challenger.

It is being reported that the shuttle Discovery is being prepared for the first rescue mission in the program, but that the shuttle won't launch until October.

Endeavour is to be decommissioned in 2010, along with the Discovery when the Shuttle Program is retired. Endeavour is also scheduled to be the last Orbiter to fly to the ISS, hopefully it gets the opportunity and not lost to space.