Shuttle program's future rides on July launch

WASHINGTON, June 26 (Reuters) Space shuttle Discovery will carry more than crew and cargo for its scheduled July 1 launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The whole shuttle programme's future is riding on this flight.

The stakes could scarcely be higher: if the flight proceeds with a clean, safe lift-off and a trouble-free 13 days, NASA officials have planned two more shuttle flights this year, aiming for the eventual completion of the much-delayed International Space Station and a possible fix for the aging but cherished Hubble Space Telescope.

But if Discovery is seriously damaged at launch and the shuttle crew is sent to shelter aboard the space station, NASA chief Michael Griffin has said he would consider ending the quarter-century-old shuttle programme.

In that case, Griffin said on June 17, ''I would be moving to shut the program down. ... I think, at that point, we're done.'' That would make it virtually impossible to finish building the space station as currently designed or repair the Hubble. It would also leave the United States with no homegrown way to get humans to space until the next generation of vehicles is ready, probably around 2011.

NASA's human space flight programme has been under a cloud since the shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas on February 1, 2003, killing all seven aboard.

An investigation found that a chunk of foam insulation fell from the shuttle's tank during lift-off and hit the ship's left wing, opening a gash that let in super-heated gas on re-entry and ultimately ripped the craft apart.

The investigation also found a ''broken safety culture'' at NASA, where schedule pressures sometimes dictated the launch timetable and safety concerns were inadequately communicated to those with the power to delay a flight or fix a problem.

In the three years since then, NASA worked to change its internal culture and redesigned parts of the shuttle tank to avoid the problem of falling debris. But the fleet was grounded after last July's shuttle mission when a piece of foam dropped off Discovery during launch.

If Discovery's upcoming mission fails, it would be a low note for a program that originally aimed to make space travel commonplace, said Roger Launius, who heads the division of space history at the National Air and Space Museum.

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