IT’S all systems go and all fingers crossed at NASA. Even as the agency’s new administrator, Michael Griffin, emphasised that returning the space shuttles to flight was his priority, technicians finished pumping 2 million litres of fuel into the shuttle Discovery’s redesigned external fuel tank. The fuel-up on 14 April was part of a successful dress rehearsal for the possible relaunch next month.
It was the first time a fuel tank had been filled with the cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen since the shuttle Columbia’s accident in 2003. Investigators determined that the accident was caused by a piece of…
