Space shuttle program faces critical juncture

0 Comments | USA TODAY, August, 2005 | by Traci Watson

CAPE CANAVERAL -- A safe return for space shuttle Discovery wouldn't help NASA fully overcome the loss of Columbia. Even a picture-perfect touchdown would leave the space agency confronting several problems.

All future shuttle flights are on hold indefinitely because of trouble with Discovery's fuel tank -- the same problem that caused Columbia to disintegrate while re-entering the Earth's atmosphere in 2003 and which NASA vowed to fix. Members of Congress have expressed doubts about NASA's competence, and the aging shuttles are to be retired in 2010.

"There's going to be no room for margin of error in terms of flying again if there's not a high level of confidence that the problems we know about are solved," says Rep. Bart Gordon of Tennessee, the top Democrat on...