MIAMI (Reuters) - The space shuttle Discovery began its crawl to a launch pad on Wednesday, after a crack in insulating foam briefly delayed the significant step in NASA's two-year quest to return the shuttle fleet to flight.
The roll-out, taking place at barely 1 mile per hour and expected to last six hours, was delayed by more than an hour after a technician spotted a hairline crack in the foam on the shuttle's external fuel tank.
Falling foam ripped a hole in Shuttle Columbia's wing in 2003, condemning its seven-man crew to death when the spacecraft disintegrated on re-entry, in the second fatal disaster to hit the shuttle program.
NASA consulted experts from the tank-manufacturing facility in New Orleans to determine if repairs were needed to Discovery, then continued the shuttle's transfer on its giant platform to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral in Florida.
Full Story @ Reuters.com
uh.. your foam is cracked so you call the manufacturer and they say "eh! fughgetaboutit.." and you do.
Sounds like NASA has NOT learned it's lesson to me.