54 Quotes by Wayne Hale

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.