Contributed by: filbert Friday, August 05 2005 @ 07:41 AM CST
Despite insulation problems beneath the Commander’s *censored*pit window, the Shuttle will return to Earth on Monday[*1] .
After plenty of wind-tunnel tests on the ground, the consensus among NASA personnel now is that the return flight will be as safe as possible, although shuttle deputy programme manager Wayne Hale offered no guarantees: the tunnel-tests revealed that tiny pieces of the insulating blanket could tear off during reentry, and that there was a 1.5 per cent chance that the whole section would come loose.