Follow the train of thought, if you will.
If you put a fox into a henhouse, he's going to have chicken for dinner EVERY time.
If you don't fix a recurring problem on a space shuttle blasting it's way out of the Earth's atmosphere, the problem will be repeated EVERY time.
So why is NASA insisting on putting the shuttle into space without solving the problem of foam coming off the external fuel tank? As things stand right now, the foam will begin falling off as soon as there is upward thrust from the solid rocket boosters. A one-pound piece of foam hit the Columbia at over 500mph and blew a hole in the shuttle's wing, compromising the heat shield and dooming the shuttle. Discovery narrowly avoided the same fate last year when foam came off the fuel tank but just missed hitting the spacecraft.
NASA is rushing into things and endangering the entire shuttle program. If the Discovery is lost, they're going to start dismantling the shuttles Atlantis and the Endeavor before the day is out.
The new safety features that they've installed on the Discovery will keep the crew alive this time, but still, what happens if the Discovery is damaged and they have to send up the Atlantis on a rescue mission and that spacecraft gets damaged by the foam falloff problem? Are they going to rush the Endeavor back into service to bring back TWO shuttle crews knowing that the foam could strike and cripple Endeavor too? And will there be enough food and air on the International Space Station to support THREE shuttle crews who are trapped in space?
The chance of all this happening is remote, but if Discovery is deemed unsafe for atmospheric interface due to foam compromising the shuttle's structural integrity, they have already stated that they will send Atlantis up on a rescue mission within 25 days; there's no way that they can diagnose the problem and fix it in that time.
If the engineers think they need more time to fix the problem, NASA should give it to them.
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